


The Road Goes Ever On

by Chauntlucet



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chauntlucet/pseuds/Chauntlucet
Summary: “Are you coming?” The man had paused, was casting a glance back over his shoulder at the elf, a brow half-quirked.“What?”“You might prove useful. As a guide.”Silence. A flat look. That was all Fëanáro could return with in answer. Did he honestly think...after...afterbinding himas he had, did this man seriously think… “You are absolutelymad, aren't you?”And there it was again, not hidden now. The barest flicker of a smirk, an ironic twist curling at the man’s lips. He simply shrugged, turning asside and once more begining to stride off.“Answer my questions, and perhaps I shall answer yours.” Was all the stranger said.Fëanáro and his family would offten travel to the very edges of Valinor seeking the unknown. Upon meeting a mysterious stranger in the woods, however, he's about to get far more than he bargained for.
Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar & Curufin | Curufinwë, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Curufin | Curufinwë, John Uskglass & Fëanor
Comments: 74
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

He was awoken...not by any sound he could place, no touch that he could feel, no change of light or sudden brightness. No. Through the silver wash of Telperion’s light the shadow of some creeping forest beast or another would slip by, padding across the undergrowth before vanishing once more amongst it’s darkling kin. A branch would bob, here or there, in the passing breeze while the leaves in the canopy above hissed and whispered softly against one another. And there was the breathing of his sons, a steady in-and-out, just barely audible. 

Fëanáro shut his eyes. Pressed out a breath of his own, long and low, a faint mist that curled, slowly drifting upon the air for a passing moment. It must have been that which pulled him from his sleep. That was it, and that had to be all, the elf decided as he pulled both cloak and blanket more tightly around both he and his wife, drawing in closer to Nerdanel. Only the cold, perhaps the rough bark of the tree he leaned against digging into his back as well. He turned aside, but after a moment gave it up for done. Beside him Nerdanel stirred, her brow crinkling, unseeing eyes beginning to blink to life. 

“Hush now,” He murmured, leaning down, brushing his lips against her temple, “I will return.”

With those words he slipped his arms from around her waist, taking care as he stood to ensure she was well wrapped in their blanket, and began to walk into the night.

He _was_ awake now, and there was nothing to be done for it, so he picked his way towards the edge of the glade, taking care as he stepped around Curvo and young Tyelpë curled upon his chest. He needed to be up. Needed to be moving, rather than waiting silent and still. 

The air felt...there was something on it. Something Fëanáro could not quite describe. He was so strangely _aware_ of the blood flowing through his veins, however, and his heart beating in his chest, and the air seemed somehow to be _singing_ in reply. _Singing, huh!_ There was no sound, merely a subtle vibration, a tension, as if he stood on the edge of a precipice, as if the entire forest around him were _waiting…_

And then…

And then something in the shadows _moved._ There, where the slim shadow of a birch cut a gouge through the soft, silver light, falling into the silhouette of a hawthorn tree. A figure emerged, striding out amidst the trees and hanging drifts of moss. It held no bestial shape, but rather stood as an elf would, and paused for a moment, glancing about at its surroundings and nodding, almost... _satisfied,_ to itself, as though gathering it’s bearings in no way Fëanáro had ever seen an _animal_ act. 

Ai! But he must have been going mad, this strange excitement he had woken to driving his mind to who knew what kind of wild, paranoid fancies. Others may not have often traveled out this far, but there was nothing to _stop_ them from doing so. And even had he not _seen_ anyone come from that direction to emerge into the light on the opposite side of the hawthorn tree, who was to say it was not some Maia, some follower of Oromë’s or Nessa’s cloaking themselves in physical form?

No, it was nothing. Simply the rarely seen sights of the forest at night, Fëanáro assured himself. 

And yet, there they still remained. The questions niggling at the back of his mind as he watched the figure move off into the forest, as if it were no different than a loping wolf, a running stag. _Where did you come from and what is your purpose here?_

And perhaps it was merely that the being had just _appeared._ Oh, to hear about the Ainur doing such was one thing, but to actually see it? Nothing, mere empty space in one moment, and then the next…

Fëanáro shook himself. Slid a glance back over his shoulder to his wife and his sons still fast asleep.

 _“Void have me!”_ he muttered to himself.

And with that curse spoken, little more than a breath on the wind, he was gone, turning on his heel and slipping away after the figure. He would have no peace otherwise, and he knew it. He had to go and at least try to understand.

He padded softly through the spaces between the trees, moving as he remembered moving with Turko as a child, stalking along after some roving deer or unknowing bear in order to observe and satisfy the boy’s curiosity. Perhaps he was no huntsman, as his son had grown to be, but his step was as sure and silent out here in these far wildernesses as it was upon Tirion’s diamond-dusted streets. Surer, even, perhaps.

It did not take Fëanáro long to note the same ease in the Stranger’s own stride. He moved as though he _belonged_ in this place. More evidence towards his simply being some servant of Oromë’s? 

_Perhaps,_ but a strange one this figure would be. The shadowy aspect that lay about him diminished not at all as Fëanáro grew nearer, and instead the Prince of the Noldor found himself stalking after a young man dressed completely, from cloak to boots in black. He might have almost believed this stranger had _meant_ to go skulking about, were it not for the fact that the cut --though strange to Fëanáro’s eyes -- was so fine. To look at the snaking silver knots embroidered along the hem of the cloak and the wide sleeves of his robes was to see that this was not the clothing of a simple traveler or a mere hunter, yet odder still, his hair --long and dark as any Noldo’s -- was left to hang loose and drift about in the wind, neither in a hunter’s braid meant to keep it out of the way, nor in any of the formal, complex styles meant for court functions. 

The more he saw, the more questions the elf inevitably had. 

And all paled to what was to follow.

A Look, that was all. The Stranger did not even pause in his stride as his gaze slid from straight ahead, back towards the line of tall, silvery birches that stood between he and Fëanáro. Their eyes met just briefly, shining sword steel and night dark, before the Stranger reached out his hand towards the elf.

And he was bound. This creeping stillness had stolen over Fëanáro _completely,_ washing over him from the tips of his ears to the soles of his feet. Not a inch could he move, down to the smallest finger on his hand. His eyes _couldn’t_ widen. He could not even scream, standing there, silenced. 

_Move..._ **_Move!_ ** He commanded himself, muscles straining, his will pounding against the invisible binds holding him as though he were some wild beast trapped within a cage. He wanted to claw at his own throat, Wanted to turn upon the Stranger and--

The ground began to shake with the familiar sound of it. Horses’s hooves pounding across the earth. 

They broke through the wood a moment later. His own horse, Nárcolindo, was as sleek and fleet-footed a beast as could be found in Valinor, yet compared to the creatures ridden by these hunters, that courser of his looked no better than a knock-kneed donkey. Their fur was a gleaming velvet black, manes whipping out behind them, while darting at their hooves ran hounds so white they nearly glowed. 

As for the riders themselves? If you had told him that they had broken free from a painter’s canvas or an illumination in a book he would not have been surprised. They were...stylized, _idealized_ , those were the only words that seemed suited for it. Something about them looked unreal, but what he could not name.

A shout rose amongst their company as they approached. “Aha! And _there_ he is! Hail, Starling and well met!” 

A thousand thoughts swirled through his mind in that moment, ranging from the fact that these riders _knew_ this man -- were expecting him -- to noting the subtle twitch of the Stranger’s lips, the brief moment where the bones of his hands stood out, stark and white through his flesh as his hands clenched, and then let go. He saw it because he recognized it, had felt it, that flash of irritation whenever one of his half-bothers had entered a room.

But beyond all of that and erasing all thought of everything else? It was the very words they spoke, the _language_ . How was it that Rúmil had described it once? _“_ _Great and stern, and yet also swift and subtle in movement, making sounds that we find hard to counterfeit; and their words are mostly long and rapid, like the glitter of swords, like the rush of leaves in a great wind or the fall of stones in the mountains."_ Yes, this speech was _Valarin!_ Yet...no…as much as he had studied the language himself this sounded like no dialect of it he had ever come across before. Was it possible? Perhaps, how much of the Ainur was truly _known_ ? But to hide an entirely different branch of the language? To conceal it’s _speakers_ from knowledge--

The Stranger was speaking. 

“Well met indeed. You heard then, of my arrival?”

“But of course!” So spoke the presumed leader of the Hunt, a man whose shaggy mane --the exact shade of fox’s fur -- caught like embers in the lamplight carried by his company. “I have my friends here, and do you not think they would tell me of the arrival of a stranger in my realm? But come, I am _nothing_ if not hospitable and you shall not remain a stranger for long! Allow me to welcome you properly! We hunt now, but I have heard you enjoy such pleasures, and afterwards, why! We shall have nothing less than a feast worthy of a guest of your esteem!”

It was a speech that had Fëanáro _wishing_ that he could roll his eyes. The stranger as well, seemed hardly impressed. There was little he could see of the man’s face, but the tone in his voice suggested something of a raised brow. “You hunt tonight? In _this_ land?”

“Oh! You are surprised? Or is it that you fear the wrath of the Powers that inhabit this realm?” The tone in the Huntsman’s voice might have been teasing, his manner perfectly easy, for all of his own words.To tempt the wrath of the Valar, in their own realm? _What were these beings about to do?_ Some vauge memories, Tales of the Black Rider rose up in the back of Fëanáro’s mind, but he quickly quashed them down. For all he might say of them, the Valar would never be fool enough to allow such a thing to happen upon their own doorstep!

Then again, even now Melkor roamed freely in Valinor...

Meanwhile, in answer to the insult to his pride The Stranger tilted his chin just upwards, his shoulders set back straighter. The matter-of-fact murmur in his voice never changed, though. “It is not fear, merely courtesy. Where I am from Kings are not known to appreciate…” here Fëanáro struggled with the translation, the word itself meant something along the lines of _theft_ , though what there was to _steal_ in a wilderness owned by no man was beyond Fëanáro, “in their forests.” 

“Hrmm? Well perhaps that is so, yet we have no lack of game, _here._ Hart and Hind, Buck and Doe, Fox, Boar and Hare, we are free to hunt all -- even if _other_ quarries must be sought elsewhere.”

The Stranger only nodded, “Then I wish you good hunting. My journey has been long, and I wish to acquaint myself with my surroundings. I will gladly accept your hospitality once you have returned, however.”

For what seemed a long while, the Huntsman looked down at the stranger from up above, upon his horse, almost as though he were searching for something within the words. Finding nothing he could take offense to however, he merely shrugged, smiling a fox’s smile. “As you wish, young Starling.” he said, “You will find the path to my home easily enough, and a warm welcome once you meet it’s end. Until my return…” The Huntsman bowed his head, and with those words was off again, kneeing his horse on, and leading the others off in a thunderous dust-cloud, kicking up dirt and undergrowth as they dove deeper into the trees. 

The sound faded off into the distance. One moment, then another passed. And then finally the Stranger too began moving off again. Once more Fëanáro was left only to uselessly pound iron will against frozen body. He would _not_ be left like this, he could _not-_

The world lurched forward, feet running over the earth as though he’d just crashed through a barricaded door. He only caught himself last minute, panting as he drew himself upright, eyes wide, and scanning the woodland about himself.

When his eyes fell onto the Stranger again, his gaze was turning ahead, and his hand was falling back to his side. It was then that Fëanáro realized that amending his situation -- _the one this man had put him in --_ was entirely an afterthought.

It had become too much, and after all that had just passed…

Fëanáro wanted an explanation.

“Is that all then?” He demanded, calling after the other, “And you think now you will simply walk away? After...after doing... _what did you do to me?”_

The chirping of crickets and frogs hung on the air between them. There was a moment…

And then the pause. A Stillness that fell over the Stranger as realization struck him.

Slowly the Stranger turned around, head canted just to the side. His eyes were narrowed as he looked upon Fëanáro and his gaze raked him up and down. 

“You speak this tongue?” 

Fëanáro’s brows shot up, “Why should I _not?”_ he asked. Admittedly, it was a language few amongst the Eldar had learned, or even truly wished to. The sounds were difficult for elvish tongue to form, and were unpleasant to most ears regardless. But _that_ was entirely beside the point.

“I have met few who do. That is, few who are _not_ amongst the Daione Sidhe.” Said with little more than a shrug as the Stranger edged a step or two nearer. Fëanáro would give him this much: he recovered quickly.

“Dee-na Shee?” Fëanáro repeated, as though feeling out the shape of the words on his tongue, again they were unfamiliar and untranslatable. “That is what your kin call themselves?”

That was answered with little more than a sharp snort. ( Fëanáro shot the man a hard glace) “Do you ask nothing but questions?” Fëanáro thought he might have seen the faintest ghost of a smirk flicker over the man’s features then, but he was already shaking his head and turning away once more, quickly and suddenly.

 _What?_ Had the man grown _bored?_

Fëanáro’s tongue clicked, sharp and irritated against his own teeth. He would not _beg_ for his answers. Not go chasing after this man . He had his _pride,_ after all, and if the man were to be this way, there were other ways to --

“Are you coming?” The man had paused, was casting a glance back over his shoulder at the elf, a brow half-quirked.

_“What?”_

“You might prove useful. As a guide.”

Silence. A flat look. That was all Fëanáro _could_ return with in answer. Did he honestly think...after...after _binding him_ as he had, did this man seriously think… “You are absolutely _mad,_ aren't you?”

And there it was again, not hidden now. The barest flicker of a smirk, an ironic twist curling at the man’s lips. He simply shrugged, turning asside and once more begining to stride off.

“Answer my questions, and perhaps I shall answer yours.” Was all the stranger said.

He was being toyed with. This man thought himself clever with these games. He _should_ have turned about then and there and returned to his family. He had no reason even to _trust_ him!

_And yet, and yet…._

And yet, what was he out there for if not to explore the unknown? If not to discover and learn? And if such a discovery should just fall directly into his lap, would he not be a fool to turn it away? 

_Void take him, and Void take this stranger as well._

“If I answer your questions, you _will_ answer mine.” Fëanáro said, falling into step beside this stranger.


	2. Chapter 2

The forest fell silent at the sound of their approach. From the haunting questions asked by the owls, to the all-too-human screams of yowling foxes, to the skittering of leaves throughout the undergrowth stirred up by wandering voles and mice, all turned to sudden stillness with the first edges of the low-pitched rumble that shook across the forest floor. It was instinct. By the time the braying of the Hunt’s horn echoed through the trees, by the time the wild whoops and laughter danced, darting over the night air, the forest itself might as well have been barren. Dead.

They were a shining company, a blaze even through the Silvery light of Telperion which fell like a mist across Valinor. A blur of light and motion and the thunder of horse's hooves. A sight that was never meant to be seen. 

On other worlds, where they were remembered -- even on _this_ world, in the regions beyond the sea and Grinding Ice, where the Powers’ might were not so focused, were the protection the Elder King placed over the Children of this realm was as naught -- none would venture out on this night. Here there were signs written on the air itself, a singing silence, a taste of wild herbs and distant mountainsides stirring in the cold. A sense of Magic that was as much a warning as the ringing of the Hunt’s horns. This was a night for the Oromandi, for the Tavari and the Orrosi. A night for those born before the world and older than its oldest. A night for those who were not of the world, but laughed at it much, and saw it as for the most part a play and a game for their own amusement.

And out here, on this night, a family slept peacefully beneath the stars. 

“You were quite right, cousin, they _are_ such beautiful things…”

Two figures stood at the edge of the glade, broken off from the rest of the Hunt, men tall and lean, who moved with all of the causal grace of forest cats. Their hair stirred about them, spinning drifting tendrils that encircled them and obscured their faces, as though a wind whispered through the trees, yet if a wind did blow past, it touched at nothing else.

“Indeed, is it any wonder they were brought here, far from all harm?”

A light chuckle escaped from one, leaning back against a nearby tree. “Oh, no, no! Why, I would do much the same thing were they in my charge…” He stood, creeping nearer a pair of the sleeping elves, a father, who’s son was curled up upon his chest. Kneeling down, he casually brushed aside a strand of hair falling in front of the boy’s face. Blank staring eyes fluttered suddenly back to life as the child lifted his head, blinking curiously at this new stranger. The man smiled down at the boy.

“It is a good thing then,” He said, turning to glance back over to his companion, “That we mean them no harm at all, isn’t it?” 

~*~

“How much of this forest do you know?” 

“Isn’t that something you should have considered before taking me on as guide?” 

“Yet you took up the task willingly.”

Fëanáro shook his head, rolling his eyes. “I know it well enough, having come here before.” 

“Is there a break in the undergrowth anywhere near by? An overgrown track perhaps? The ruins of an old road?”

There was a pause, as Fëanáro thought. A road? Out _here?_ To be used by who? Yet, he did remember something… “This way.” he grunted, leading the stranger along 

For a long while they moved in silence, picking their way through tangling briers and ducking beneath low lying tree-limbs. It was Fëanáro who finally broke it:“Those hunters, they meant ill with their purpose.” It was a pointed statement, his voice hard as he spoke it. 

The Stranger turned a glance to Fëanáro, just long enough to meet his eyes, before simply drawing his attention back out amongst the trees that surrounded them, breathing out a soft snort. 

The muscles in Fëanáro’s jaw tensed, teeth sliding across themselves as he gritted them. His nails bit deep into his palms, but he chose to allow for that rather than for his words to bite at the Stranger -- for now, atleast. Instead, somehow managing to keep his tone even, he continued on, “You knew those hunters. They regarded you as a guest.”

The words, and wherever he meant to lead with them were answered only by further silence however. It was the crooked, crossing shapes made by the branches across the sky that the Stranger was more concerned with, tracing them with his eyes as though they were words on a page. Somewhere nearby, an owl’s call echoed. The Stranger’s gaze fell upon the creature as they passed, and he nodded to the beast almost as if in greeting!

If he was any frame of mind to notice, Fëanáro might have been unnerved by just how intent and aware the bird’s gaze was as it watched the two.

As it stood, he only fixed the man with a flat look. “And must I too begin hooting like some wild bird in order to receive _acknowledgement?_ ”

The stranger sighed. He paused for a moment in the road, his eyes narrowing, his head canting to the side as he continued to stare at the crossing tree-limbs above. “You are wondering if you have any reason to trust me.” The man said it as though he were making some observation about the weather.

“ _And?”_ Fëanáro pressed.

The Stranger took a step back, letting his gaze fall from the forest canopy and settled his eyes _finally_ on Fëanáro, “I never said you did.”

He didn’t know which was worse, the words themselves, or that bloody matter-of-fact _calm_ that he continued on speaking to him with! As though it mattered not one wit _how_ it was Fëanáro thought of him! Either way, he would have no more of it.“The only reason we now _talk_ is because you made no mention of me to those friends of yours!” The elf snapped, “Because you held me at a disadvantage and chose for some reason to simply _release me. You_ were the one to say you wanted a guide, and yet you do not seem to care if I believe you might somehow still turn around and prove yourself some spy or servant of Melkor’s?”

The stranger blinked. “Melkor?” 

Fëanáro opened his mouth to speak, only to shut it a moment later, falling silent. His lips pressed into a pale, hard line, a long sigh escaping him. After some moments he finally found his voice again.“Do not think to _mock_ me, now.” 

“I am not.” 

The elf gave a sharp snort, “Come off it! How can you not know of the very source of all evil in the world?”

“I am from Elsewhere. That _is_ why you are here as my guide.” The words were spoken so simply, and even as they were still being voiced the man was already starting off again, waving for Fëanáro to come along.

“‘Elsewhere’” The elf scoffed, “and where would _‘Elsewhere’_ be? The shores of Cuiviénen? Beyond the very spheres of the Earth?”

And the stranger still said nothing, simply shutting his eyes and lifting his shoulders in another one of those bloody shrugs again!

“No….” Fëanáro murmured… _“No, that could not possibly…”_

“Do you really think your world could be all that there is?” The stranger asked.

But Fëanáro did not answer. Whatever it was that he thought of the man, there was something to the way he’s asked the question, to the way he spoke of it, as if it _could_ be so simple, that seemed genuine.

And it was, the Noldorin Prince had to admit, _intriguing._ Worlds beyond his own to explore and discover? Vast places full of knowledge still outside his reach? Despite himself he found he _wanted_ to believe this stranger…

“If you are from this ‘ _Elsewhere,’_ then tell me,” Fëanáro asked, “How did you find your way here?”

A spark of something familiar lit the Stranger’s eyes when Fëanáro asked. He recognized it, had felt that particular kind of pride that came whenever he was asked of his _own_ projects.

“I built a Road,” The man replied. 

~*~

Horns, or the echoes of them. They called to Tyelcormo from the edges of his dreams. He turned in his sleep, twitching at the sound. _"Not now...a few more moments..."_ came the words, soft and slurred.

The Horns sounded again.

He awoke on instinct as much as anything. When the horns sounded, you got up -- so it was, riding in Oromë’s company. So, slowly, the silver-haired elf stretched, a low groan escaping him and his eyes blinking blearily open as he pressed his hands over his face. Tyelcormo dug in his elbow beneath him, pushing himself upright. Memory -- where he was, that he was with his family, that he could actually sleep in for a time -- filtered back in slowly. The Horns must have been a dream...

Still half-asleep he blinked in Telperion’s light, his gaze absently scanning over the clearing.

And then he tuned to Curvo.

“Ilúvatar in-- _fucking_ _shit!”_ He’d lept up half-way through the phrase and was already shaking his brother awake. “Curvo, _Curvo!”_

Still on the ground, Curufinwë swatted his brother back in his sleep. “Continue Tyelco, and you will _loose_ your hands.'' His words were a near growl.

“It’s not my _hands_ you should bloody well be worrying about, eejit!” Another low curse escaped Tyelco, and he was on his feet once more, pacing now to the edge of the glade.

“What are you--” Curvo murmured, beginning to push himself upright. He froze. His eyes widened. The realization clubbed him over the head like a hammer in the forge. The weight that had been resting on his chest all night, the warm little bundle that had slept so peacefully curled up in his arms? Gone. 

A strangled sound came cracking out of Curvo’s throat. _“My son.”_ He breathed, “My-- _Tyelco!”_

Tyelcormo snapped his head up from the earth he crouched over, gaze darting towards his brother, now on his feet as well and coming towards him fast.

 _“Where is my son?”_ The words were soft, as Curvo ground them out, yet there were swords that would seem dull in comparison.

“I don’t know.” Tyelcormo murmured, heaving himself back up off of the forest floor. He grabbed his brother by the shoulders, looking him in the eye “But we are going to find out.” And with those words he gestured out, along the ground, in the direction where the broken, disturbed undergrowth left a track.

Curufinwë said no more, only sliding the hunting knife on his belt free from it’s scabbard, before setting off.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time he’d woken Huan and set down the track himself, Curufinwë was a good several yards ahead of them, a swiftly shrinking shadow-speck becoming lost in the twisting corridors and narrow passageways the arching branches above created as they wove within one another’s grasp. 

“Iron _hells!”_ Tyelcormo nearly spat the words,swinging himself onto Huan’s back. Not a word needed to pass to the great wolfhound before he went sprinting off, the earth between the two of them and Curvo devoured in Huan’s great, loping strides. 

Grasping twigs and low hanging branches snapped and snagged against his cloak and the hair whipping out behind him. Tyelcormo pressed low against Huan’s back, fingers digging into his fur.

_“You need to stop him. He goes the wrong way,”_ Huan said.Spoken in the language of Hounds, the words came out a rumbling growl, one Tyelcormo felt in his bones as much as he heard in his ears. 

_“What? What do you mean? That path-”_

_“Does not carry the pup’s scent. Of what scent it does carry, I cannot say but...”_ The hound only trailed off, grunts and snarls transformed into a low whine.

Celegorm frowned. It was not like Huan to be _confused._ How far had he traveled? How much had the both of them encountered? Some things even now Tyelcormo did not think he could adequately describe to others. For Huan to _not_ be able to identify a scent…

Tyelcomo pressed his lips together, for a long moment just frowning at the blur of silver and shadows about him before quickly shaking his head, urging Huan on.

“Curvo!”He called out as they neared, “ _Curufinwë!_ Stop! Slow down!”

Curvo ignored him. Tyelcormo cursed again.

“ _You know what to do.”_ He grunted to Huan.

Tyelcormo braced himself, but even so his breath still came in all a rush as Huan lunged forward, breaking into full speed. His face pressed down against the hound’s thick, ropy coat, as Huan rounded on Curvo, cornering him like a deer.

As he pushed himself back upright, he was met with a glower that could likely melt stone. Ah, well, they _did_ always say that Curvo was most like Atar…

“Get out of my way, Tyelcormo.”

“Not until you listen.”

Curvo’s brows shot up at that, slowly his head turned on it’s side. His eyes remained ever fixed on Tyelcormo. “Until I _listen?”_ Herepeated. His voice remained level, even, but there was a blade hidden in those words. Meanwhile, Curvo’s thumb kept flicking, like one of Kano’s metronomes, over the blade held in his hand. “Forgive me brother, but were _you_ not the one who alerted me to this matter? _My son is --”_

“Not down this way.” Tyelcormo cut in, “Or, at the least, Huan does not pick up upon his scent.” 

There was a sharp hiss. Curvo sucking the air in between his teeth, as the knife bit down into his flesh. Were it not for that tight grip, that leash-like control he held over himself always, Tyelcormo was sure his brother would have bolted by now. He could see it, lurking there just below the surface, in the sharp ridge of bone that stood out along his knuckles and that flicker of worry just behind his eyes.

“We waste time, then.” Those were Curvo’s only words before he turned on his heel and began driving off back the way they had come. 

Tyelcormo sighed. He trotted up Huan beside his brother. “We will find him, Curvo.” he insisted. “You must believe that.” 

In an effort to comfort him, Huan leaned his head towards the elf, nuzzling against his chest.

“Tch.” Curufinwe raised his arms to push the hound away. Only to freeze.

Huan had gone still. Huan was _growling._

In the next moment Huan rounded back on the trail again, lunging down it.

“Huan! To heel!” Tyelcormo cried, _“What is the matter with you?”_

_“That scent. It is on him.”_

_“What? You mean--”_

_“Yes, whatever it was that took the pup, it has come down this way. And recently.”_

Tyelcormo’s breath came in sharp. He swung around, calling over his shoulder to his brother, “Curvo, come! We have found something…”

~*~

“If it is another world you are from, can the same be said for those Hunters you spoke to earlier?”

By now, Fëanáro expected the answer. The silence that followed, that vague turn of the head, a gesture of the hand, halfway between a balancing scale and a dismissive wave. It hadn’t been long, perhaps an hour or so at most since first he’d encountered the Stranger, yet he felt he was beginning to understand -- not the man himself, of course, not _really_ , but what he was like, at least.

And so he continued on. “If they are, then I imagine they would have come here through a similar path, yes? And that is the route we look for now?” He’d just remembered the lead Huntsman saying something of the like to the young man earlier. It had slipped his mind before, but, as it was, Fëanáro was rather concerned with _other matters_ at the time. “But if that is the case, then I should hardly think you would need _me_ to find it…”

The Stranger was simply _watching_ him as he asked these things, eyes resting upon him in a lazy half-lidded stare. The corner of his lips quirked upwards. 

Fëanáro snorted, catching the man’s look, “By all means,” he drawled, “if you have anything to say, your input would be quite welcome.” 

“If I felt any need for it, I would.” 

Fëanáro fixed the stranger with a flat look. With a slow shake of his head, he returned his gaze to the surrounding trees and mushrooms poking out of the leaf litter. _They_ at least provided answers if one knew what to look for.

“I will say this.” The stranger said after a moment or so, “you are _nearing_ the truth of it.”

“ _Am_ I, now?”

“You are. They are not of this world. But it is theirs more than mine.”

“ _Of course_.” Of course, _that_ should be the answer the Stranger gave him. The man seemed completely incapable of speaking in anything but riddles, should he expect anything different? 

The mushrooms along the way were growing more thickly now, in long clusters forming lines to either side of them. Fëanáro remembered passing this way, beneath Laurelin’s light he had first seen it and it had struck him as odd _then,_ as if something were trying to guide the walker somewhere. Now, the world bleached of all color save for Telperion’s pale cast, it was almost eerie.

He knew at least, he was going in the right direction. He began picking up speed, his step more assured as he led the Stranger onward.

“You have followed this way before?” 

Fëanáro glanced up as the Stranger next spoke. It was the tone in the man’s voice as much as anything -- surprise, just laced with a faint air of judgement (or atleast what he interpreted as such). It made his hackles rise. _“Yes…”_ He said, drawing out the word if only to hold back his own frustration.

A low, thoughtful sort of hum, that was the entirety of the man’s response as his eyes played along the trail of mushrooms. 

“And if I had not?” Fëanáro pressed, “Where would you be then?”

The stranger’s gaze flickered back to the elf. There was something piercing in that gaze, searching. As though he were looking _into_ Fëanáro, rather than simply at him.“I would find my way.” he said, before simplyturning to look straight on ahead. “Do you really have no idea where this road leads? No tales that tell of such places?”

“What? Of mushroom strewn paths that lead off to other worlds?” But there _were_ tales. Half forgotten in Valinor, dismissed by scholars such as himself as mere misinterpretation, encounters with Maiar upon Middle-Earth, or vauge glimpses of Oromë’s company before anything was understood. Folklore on the same level of the Black Rider. And yet those words began to whisper in his mind now, _Nermir, Nandini, Orrosi, Oromandi…_ “Children’s tales.” Fëanáro insisted. “You cannot be _serious_ abou--”

A high, ringing bark broke through the woods at that moment. It happened so fast, there was no time to react. A blur of white. A grunt and a thud.

_Turko?_

It was the only thought able to register in Fëanáro’s mind in that split moment.

Tyelcormo sat, crouched over Huan’s back, his hair streaming about his face, his eyes a wild reflection of the Hound’s own. Huan himself stood growling down at the Stranger, now pinned beneath the hound’s great paws. 

“Tyelco, call your hound off!” Curufinwë’s voice. A moment later, he too came crashing out through the trees, “We need answers now, not the bastard’s blood streaming out over-- _Atar?!”_ He cut himself off, his eyes widening, gaze flickering between the stranger so near to Huan’s teeth, and his own father.

~*~

_“Where is he? What did you do with him?”_ The words were a low, rolling growl, the sort that stretched on, and twisted at some deep, animal part of him. The part that was a frightened hare, and only screamed to _run_ , over and over.

Wild eyes and gleaming teeth. Long, snaking flows of silver hair. Hot, reeking breath huffed into his face and creeping along his neck. In those first shocked moments, there was only impressions. The ground tipping up over itself, the bite of stones and twisting tree roots into his back. The weight pressinginto his shoulders.

He blinked, staring up at the towering creature that now loomed over him. His mind still reeling -- he was not used to being _surprised_ , not like this. He should have _known,_ should have heard whisperings of _something --_ it took him a moment even to separate hound from rider. 

_Hound._ It was a hound wasn’t it? The size of a horse, yes, but still undeniably…

There were voices shouting off, a way back. The voice of the first man he’d met on the road --his guide-- rising. The Rider twisted around, barked something to the other two. John Uskglass would not have understood it even _were_ he paying attention. As it stood, the hound’s growling had grown only lower and more insistent, especially as the rider now turned back, and demanded something of the Magician. 

_“Do not just lie there! Answer him! Where did you leave --”_

“Who do you think I am?” 

The hound’s ears pricked, and for a moment the sharp little pins of pressure at his shoulders --the hound’s claws digging in -- eased up just slightly. John could feel the weight of the Rider’s stare upon him as well.

_“You speak to **me?”**_

“As you speak to me.”

This earned John another low growl, _“You try to distract me. To win my trust against those of my pack.”_

“No, I do not.”

_“Then why do you not speak to **me**?” _This time the growl had a much more human quality to it. John’s eyes flickered upward to find himself staring down the Rider. _“I could have your throat torn out right now, and yet rather than answer, you reply to my **dog?”**_

It was a threat few would have dared to make in any of his own realms, and it struck the Raven King as rather ironic. What could _he_ have done if of a mind to do it? A faint smirk quirked at his lips. But he only shook his head, shut his eyes, pressed a long breath out through his nose. “I reply to the one speaking to me in a tongue I can understand.”

A sharp bark of laughter from the Rider, _“And what? Were you raised by hounds that you cannot speak as one of the Eldar?”_

“Wolves.” The Raven King replied.

And perhaps he had pushed too far. It was not a comment to win trust, even on his own world. The Rider’s eyes flashed. The Hound began snarling again. Somewhere behind them voices started to murmur and a call was shouted in this direction. 

To the Raven King, it grew all too tiresome. 

And so he vanished. Fell into the drowning dark of the Hound’s own shadow looming over him. 

The Hound yelped, leaping back as though afraid to vanish himself.

The Rider made a sound like a strangled squawk.

As the Raven King emerged from the shadows between the trees (as though he were stepping from a doorway. Striding through and solidifying as though from a dream or some othere _where_ entirely) it was the companion he first met upon the Road who’s eyes landed upon him first -- and those eyes were now blazing,just as bright as the heart of any star.

“My grandson.” He ground out, “Where is he? Speak, and speak quickly.”


	4. Chapter 4

It would have been enough, with most others. If not the very words themselves -- That the Prince’s grandson...No! That a _child_ was missing, lost somewhere on the Edge of Darkness, in a wilderness at the end of the world -- then the look in Fëanáro’s eyes alone would have gotten him... _something._ He did not know what he was looking for -- A confession? To hear the man rush to say he had been acting as a distraction while others swooped in and stole Tyelpe away? That he should fall to his knees beneath that gaze begging for forgiveness? Or perhaps -- Ai! Desperate thought it was! -- an offer of help?

It did not matter, nothing of the sort came, and instead -- as though his pride had been insulted and the look in Fëanáro’s eyes were a mere _challenge --_ The Stranger lifted his chin and stared Fëanáro down. “Should I know?”

 _“Do. NOT.”_ His hunting knife had lept into his hand, and Fëanáro was sweeping off into the shadows. That thrice-damned _defiance_ in the man’s eyes was all that filled his vision. _“Do not_ play these games with me now.” From a shout, his voice came down, low and dangerous. Fëanáro found himself surprised, eyes flickering back, to see his blade resting against the man’s throat. 

Surprised, yet he did not move it.

“I heard what passed between you and those hunters, talk of a forbidden quarry. _You know who has him.”_

Behind him, Fëanáro could hear nearly _hear_ his sons wincing --the speech of the Valar grated at Elven ears in the best of times, but to hear it spoken in _anger?_

“Atar, what is this? Why are you--” It was Turkafinwë who spoke, only for his voice to die a moment later, under Curufinwë’s hushed murmurs.

And all the while, the Stranger’s eyes were slowly dropping down to the knife at his throat. Fëanáro watched the man’s chest rise and fall in a smooth, even cadence. Practiced calm. A breath later and the Stranger was turning to look up again, to meet Fëanáro’s gaze.

His head canted slowly to the side, eyes narrowing at Fëanáro as though he were something to puzzle out.

“You would kill for this boy?”

“I would kill for _any_ in my family.”

“Are you willing to let me live, for your family?”

For another long moment, the two merely stared at one another, before finally, Fëanáro shoved himself back and let the knife fall to his side.

“Turko, call your hound off, I can hear it snarling from here. Stand down, Curufinwe. Tyelperinquar _will_ be found.” As he finished speaking Fëanáro’s eyes went to the Stranger again, as though to make those words weigh upon the man’s shoulders.

“Atar what is this?” Curufinwë, casting a wary glance towards the Stranger and adjusting his grip on his own knife as he approached his father, “You shout a few words in Valarin at the man, and suddenly all is well? Who is he even, that you--”

“Someone who knows far more of what we face than either you or I.” Fëanáro replied, slipping his knife back into his scabbard, as he watched the stranger drift towards the trees again. “Turko!” gesturing towards his older son, he sent him off to follow the man, Huan loping along beside him. 

“But Atar,” Curvo continued, “You cannot say you trust--”

“Trust?” Fëanáro gave a bitter bark of laughter at the word, “No, _hardly._ But I know even less of what we face.”

Curufinwë’s tongue clicked sharp against his teeth. But he said no more on the matter.

~*~

He was being watched. She was waiting for him, among the drifting beards of lichen. John heard her first, calling to him -- not far, past the breadth of a dozen or so trees, but not _far._ Large, round, solemn eyes turned to fix upon him as he neared, and though the edges of her feathers caught the fall of silver light about her, she was all in shadow.

“Do you come on your lord’s behalf, or your own?”

 _“My Lord sees all, from his place on the Holy Mountain.”_ The owl replied, _“He does not require me to fly about all the world carrying news to him -- and certainly not from within the Realm where his throne sits.”_

He gave a faint turn of his head in acknowledgement of this. Even as he leaned back, however, head propped against the tree behind him, he gazed up at the bird from beneath quirked brows. “Oh, he may _see_ the world all laid out before him as you see this forest floor now. But what is one more shadow falling across the leaves? How much does he _notice?”_ The Magician knew well the value of such distinctions, had known how to skirt the balance between the two and could become nearly invisible since childhood because of it -- even before he had even learned magic.

“Is that not what you are meant to do?” John Uskglass asked, “To notice the untoward shadows and inform your lord to direct his eyes here or there?”

The owl ruffled her feathers. “ _If you must know, it was the Lady who sent me. She heard a strange voice, speaking in a tongue that both was and was not her own.”_

“Then I imagine she heard my previous exchange as well.” It would surprise the man if half of this new realm had _not_ heardit.If nothing else, his guide’s voice _was_ piercing. 

_“If she has not, **I** have.”_

“Then she will know, one way or another, that I have done no harm.”

_“She will not like this, Raven King.”_

Silence. The Magician’s gaze flickered inward. He chewed on the inside of his lips. It would not do to make enemies out of a god, not needlessly, at the least. “I will find the boy. I have already agreed to do so.”

_“I know.”_ A pause. _“I have seen your realm, have perched amongst the rafters of your roost with my brethren. You are well loved by them. It is why I warn you now.”_

“Yet your loyalty lies not with me.”

“ _Find the boy, Raven King.”_

And with those words, the owl took silent wing. John Uskglass watched as her ghostly white form retreated into the night, moments passing until she was no more than a diminishing spark.

And then:

“How much did you hear?”

Behind him the forest remained still. _One...two...three…_ John counted the moments, wating. 

The crunch of undergrowth and the Hound’s breathing growing louder, passing wet and warm over the back of the Magician’s neck. 

“‘ _Raven King_ ,’ _You call yourself?”_

He did not need to look to see the tilt of the man’s head, or the way his brows crept up his forehead. The way he spoke was enough to draw the sauntering image so clearly across his mind. 

John sighed, brushing a hand along the bark of the tree behind him. He pushed himself upright, turned to see the man who’d stopped just beside him, hound at his side and arms crossed at his chest. Both Master and Hound were staring down at him, eyes raking over his form.

John Uskglass met their gaze in kind. That is to say, he did for a moment at least, until apparently he grew bored with whatever ploy to assert dominance the man was playing at, craning his neck over the man’s shoulder to peer off through the trees behind him. “No,” John Uskglass murmured, after several waiting moments. And where were the others? They should be coming along soon… “Others do.”

 _“Others?”_ A snort. The man shook his head, eyes rolling up skywards. But he said no more on that. Insead he merely carried on. There was a message he intended to deliver, clearly, and he would not be turned aside from it. _“Wolves, Carrion Fowl...these are not kindly beasts you associate yourself with.”_

Still no movement from beyond. Unfortunate. John Uskglass turned back to his companion, saying nothing, only canting his head to the side, staring back, clearly waiting for the man to get to his point.

This reaction was clearly not what the man was expecting. Perhaps he thought John should be looking to defend himself against whatever accusations or threats this man was trying to make. Perhaps he was looking for a fight, rather than for John to simply take his words in stride. Perhaps that was what _he_ would have done if put in John’s place. Whatever the case, that look he received made him fumble --just for a moment -- standing there blinking, before quickly shaking his head.

_“I don’t like you. I have no reason to. You appear on the night my nephew vanishes, something in your scent so clearly similar to those responsible that it leads Huan off course. You speak in some strange tongue, Not Valarin, not the language of any singular beast, yet something in between, and both my Father and I can understand you exactly as though it were either language being spoken. You are called a King of Ravens and you mock me by telling me you were raised by wolves. Held at knife-point you tell my father that you will help us find my nephew, and for some reason, he deems that as good enough. But know, if you prove false….ai, Manwë and Varda will be **the least** of your concerns….”_

He really had no idea how out of his depth that he was, did he? What, with every other sentence the man spoke to John a threat of _some kind._ And -- irksome as it _was_ becoming --John could not be madabout it. The man was like a caged beast, lashing out in the only way he knew how. And he did seem to care so much for the boy. All of them did…

“This was not the first time I’ve felt the cold iron of a knife. I do not fear it.” John said, shaking his head as he turned out, hearing the sound of approaching voices from the trees, “I made the choice of my own will.”

The silver-haired man looked as though he were about to reply. Whatever it was he meant to say however, he never spoke it. He never had the chance to. At that moment John’s guide and...his son -- the boy’s father, he supposed -- stepped through.

“Do not think to wander off again. My sons _will_ follow, and will find you.” His guide grunted at him, while beside him, The boy’s father stood there, and for all of the air of cool suspicion he tried to put on, his gaze was like a pair of draggers directed at John. “Now, our search?” 

The wind hissed a clattering whisper through the treetops. The shadows dappling the forest floor spun into ever twining, ever-shifting shapes, like the flow of one letter into another on a page. The Raven King watched. The Raven King listened. And without another word, the Raven King began to stride off, with only a faint, backwards wave for the others to follow.

~*~

The ground was rolling up and down beneath him, moving fast. The wind blew up into his face, and it smelled like horses. Tyelperinquar’s eyes cracked open, just long enough to see the trees and shadows all moving in a blur past them, just long enough to see Telperion’s silver light still falling through the air. 

“Atto,” Tyelpë groaned, the weight of sleep dragging his eyes back shut again. “It’s still _night time.”_

But the voices he heard behind him weren’t those of his father or uncles softly telling him to rest back his head, to go back to sleep, and the hand and arm holding him safe upon the horse wasn’t the work-hardened muscle and callused skin of his father’s steady grasp either.

Tyelpë’s eyes snapped open. _“Atto!”_ He jerked upright, only to find that hold around his shoulders hardening to an iron grip. His stomach lurched, the ground wobbled out of the corner of his vision, over the horse’s flank, so far and moving so fast below...

“Hush now, child. Oh, I know all of this must be so sudden and exciting, but you _must_ be careful. My cousin and I would be so terribly distraught were you to fall and hurt yourself!” 

The voice came from his side. From the rider who’s horse was galloping along next to the horse Tyelpë was on. The boy twisted around to see him. Sitting all proud and high upon his horse, he looked like someone out of the stories Uncle Makalurë knew, or out of the old tales of Cuiviénen that great-grandfather would tell. His hair was long and dark, streaming out behind him, and his eyebrows angled upwards at the end, like pen-flourishes. But most striking of all about him was the cloak wrapped about his shoulders, that even at this time of day was the exact glowing blue the sky would turn just as Laurelin entered her wanning. 

There was more talking from the man who held him, the words all really fast and really long, running together like the rush of a river or the lapping of a brook. And then the man who talked to Tyelpë turned and said more words to this other man, like the crackle of leaves underfoot and the hiss of wind through summer trees. He sighed then and shook his head.

“You really must forgive my cousin,” the man in the cloak of twilight said, “This is his first time in this realm and he does not speak it’s language. But we will get that properly remedied soon enough! And then, why, we will be able to understand one another as well as old friends!”

“Oh.” was all Tyelperinquar could say at first.He blinked at the man, and found himself wanting to sink back again, to hide away against his father’s chest, only to remember that it _wasn’t_ Atto holding him, but someone else entirely. He was confused and lost and didn’t know at all what was happening. “Who...who are you?” He asked, and then realizing that it might be rude and offend the man (and knowing somehow, in the pit of his stomach, that he should not do that) he quickly added, “I-if we’re going to be friends I think I should know.”

He thought he was rather clever for that last bit.

“Oh! How rude of me indeed!” Said the man in the cloak of twilight, “Well, you may call me Tethil Birdward, and as for my cousin he is…” The man paused for a moment and then frowned, “Well, he has no name in your tongue, but he wouldn't then, would he?” With a sharp shake of his head the man dismissed the very thought, brushing it aside with a wave.

“No…” Tyelpë murmured, brows drawing together as his gaze drew inward. “I guess not.” There was a pause, just for a moment, before Tyelpë found himself struggling to look back and up. It was no use though, just as much as he had trouble seeing Atto clearly when he rode before _him_ on his horse, he struggled to see the man behind him now. No, worse, it was even _harder_ to see him, because of how dark it was.

And it was getting darker, Tyelpë was beginning to notice…

“What’s happening to the light?” 

Tethil just gave a light laugh, “That? It is nothing to worry about, we are only moving outside of the reach of it.”

“What --” And now his heart was racing. “But..but where are we going?” _Away from Atto and Ammë. Away from Grandfather and Grandmother and all of my Uncles. From Tirion and...and...and..._

He was struggling again, and again that grasp around his shoulders turned to iron. The man behind him began to grumble something, and Tethil snapped a quick reply back, before once more turning and addressing Tyelpë. 

“You must be calm, now, we _really_ do not wish to see you hurt. Besides, it is nowhere horrid we take you, only my cousin’s humble home. Think of it as a grand adventure! Do you not grow tired of seeing the same things all day, in and out?”

“I...well…”

“Come now, are you of your Grandfather’s blood or are you not?”

“You know my Grandfather?” 

“The Prince? Who _doesn’t_? Oh, he isn’t considered very _well mannered_ by most, of course, but he _is_ one of the few who has ventured out far enough to touch the borders of our realms…”

There was no sign now of the falling drifts of Telperion’s light, but...it was not _completely_ dark either. No, strangely if anything the spaces between the tree branches above seemed to be filled with even _more_ stars than before, and there in the sky, like a bright silver coin was a light like none Tyelpë had ever seen.

“What...what is _that?”_ he could not help but ask.

“That? It is just the moon.”

“H...has my Grandfather ever seen _that?”_

A smile, reminding Tyelpë of nothing so much as the family cat, curled at Tethil’s lips. “No, I suppose he has not.”

And Tyelpë realized just then how far from home he really was.


	5. Chapter 5

Golden daylight and the heady mead of wind-stirred grasses carried in from Yavanna’s pastures; the warm musk of his horse, and the low nicker she gave as Curufinwë approached her to begin tacking her for the day’s journey; the velvet softness of her fur as she nosed at him playfully in greeting, and the power he could feel held within her muscles even as she stood still -- he could see it, taste it, feel it still now all so clearly. 

His brothers were not far off, preparing to set off, while Atar and Amil were cleaning up from the morning's meal.

“Atto! Atto, let me help!” Tyelpë’s high, piping voice. As he lay the saddle across the horse’s back, Curufinwë cast a glance back over his shoulder, to find his son running up to him, little legs making quick work of the leaf litter and scraggling undergrowth beneath them.

A raised brow and a faintly bemused quirk to his lips. Hadn’t Tyelco taken to watching the boy? His gaze flickered back to meet Finyanís’s, who’s eyes he could now feel resting on his back. His wife had paused in the midst of tacking her own horse and now, with her arms crossed over her chest, just stood there, head tilted back as she looked at him. 

It was almost a relief as the rapid pad of the boy’s feet across the forest floor grew closer.

Spinning around, Curufinwë swept down, and scooped a laughing Tyelpë up into his arms.

“Now, where _is_ your uncle?” He murmured.

Tyelpë just shrugged. “By the stream I think. He was showing me how it comes all full of fish this time of year, and I bet him he couldn't name them all, but he told me that he could, so he--”

“Yes, yes, I believe I get the idea…” Curufinwë rolled his eyes. _Tyelcormo..._

“He is _your_ son…” Finyanís said, shaking her head as she approached. She held out her arms for Tyelpë, and Curufinwë passed him over to her, a smirk flickering across his features despite himself as he bent down to tighten the girth on his horse’s saddle.

“Hello Ammë!” Tyelpë was saying, “I’ve come to help Atto with his horse!”

“Oh, did you now?” Finyanís replied, “Well, I am sure there is nothing your father would like better! Isn’t that so, Curvo?”

Despite himself, Curufinwë could not help the smile tugging at his lips. His son was at that age wherein he wanted to be just like his father, and be involved in everything his father was. Twisting his gaze upward, Curufinwë gave a quick grunt and a nod. It was as he was stepping back and pulling himself to his full height that the peace of the moment was broken.

“ _There_ you are, you sneaking _fox!”_ Tyelcormo’s voice cut suddenly through the air beneath the treeline they’d settled under the night before. As if to underline his words, Huan’s rumbling bark came like rolling thunder a moment later.

Curufinwë turned a slow glance backward, to find his brother absolutely _sopping,_ front smeared, from his face downward with mud.

“Gone for a swim Tyelco?” One of the Ambarussa. Beside the one twin, the other snickered. Carnistir was smirking as well, even as he snapped at the two to get back to helping him pack up.

“Ilúvatar in Eä, did you _push_ him in?” Curufinwë found himself murmuring , sliding his eyes back towards his son, now curling up and apparently trying to hide himself away against his mother’s chest. Meanwhile Finyanís seemed to be struggling to hide her own silent laughter.

“He fell.” Tyelpë said, poking his head up, “When he saw that I was going and tried to chase after. ” A pause, “I’m not in trouble am I?”

 _“Curufinwë!”_ Tyelcormo’s roar cut off whatever it was Curufinwë meant to say. He turned, canting his head just to the side as his brother approached.

_“That son of yours…”_

“Yes, what about him, Turko?”

It might have been comedic, the way his brother’s eyes widened as he stared back at Curufinwë. With a wide, exaggerated wave of his arm Tyelcormo put on display the full glory of the disarray he’d fallen into -- clearly enough to answer for all, without further comment.

“Hrmmm.” Curufinwë swept his eyes up and over his brother (and could not help but take note that Huan stood absolutely bone-dry beside him). “Yes. Well, I have told Tyelperinquar to watch his step near the water’s edge. If you cannot help but be a bad example to him…” 

“A bad exam- A...are you _serious?_ Can you not see that he-- _He tricked--!_ ”

“Turko,” Curufinwë drawled, by now turning from his brother and back to Tyelpë and Finyanís, arms held out for the boy again, “Do you really wish to go on crowing about how a child of less than a decade outsmarted you?” His eyes slid back over his shoulder, and just for a moment a teasing smirk touched at his lips. It was so _easy_ to get a rise out of Turko at times, and perhaps it was rather childish, yet still he couldn’t help but take _some_ amusement from it. It was only his right as younger brother, was it not?

With faint snort he turned his attention back on Finyanís and his son. “Come then,” Curufinwë said, as Tyelpë was handed back over to him and he set him upon his horse, “Today you ride with me, Tyelpë.”

The boy’s face lit up at this and as he glanced about from his perch, looking as though he were on top of the world, his eyes caught Tyelcormo’s expression. He giggled.

“One day…” The silver-haired elf was saying, stepping nearer and slapping an arm (and sodden through sleeve --mud and water were seeping through, clammy and clinging to Curufinwë ’s back ) around Curufinwë’s shoulder, “One day, Curvo, you are going to wake up and find that that boy has grown up to be just like _you.”_

Hearing those words, of course Tyelpë sat all the taller, his chest puffing out in pride. Curufinwë’s gaze slid up to meet Tyelcormo’s however, and the razor-edged grin there spoke all too well of how much Turko himself would enjoy that moment.. 

“Well, one can only hope.” was all Curufinwë replied, rolling his shoulders to push Tyelcormo back, before leaning forward and pressing a kiss upon Tyelpë’s brow. Swinging himself up onto the horse behind the boy, he glanced down at his brother.

“If I were you, I would start getting ready to go. Atar will want to be off soon, I feel.”

Tyelcormo rolled his eyes, waving off Curvo’s words, but even so, he turned, loping off towards his own end of camp.

That had been this morning.

They were silver-lined shadows, his father, his brother and himself, now standing reflected in the rippling trails traced by the stranger as he crouched over the lake shore. The air was chill, damp. It smelled of leaf-rot and loam, the waiting silence that hung over the clearing a world away from the birdsong and easy banter that morning had brought.

“What is he _doing?”_ Curufinwë found himself hissing, leaning nearer to his brother, his eyes not once leaving the stranger. His eyes hadn’t left the stranger if he could help it since first landing on him. The night’s darkness seemed almost to swallow the man. The Treelight that burned like a reflected flame in elvish eyes and glowed softly like embers beneath elvish flesh? No, he possessed none of that, the night and it’s shadows almost seeming to swallow this creature. And it seemed to Curufinwë that he almost _embraced_ that fact…

“Do you expect _me_ to know?” Tyelcormo hissed back, “Certainly nothing I have seen before. Tracing some strange pattern over the water...I may look the part, but I am no Teler, brother!” 

Curufinwë’s frown only deepened. Why had they come _here?_ They were wasting time, standing over some empty lake shore, while meanwhile Eru knew where his son was! They should have been out _there_ searching! 

His eyes slid back towards his father. It was the only reassurance he had, even as the voice at the back of his mind kept hissing at him to return to camp, to grab his horse and go running through these woods to find Tyelpë himself, if he must. Only on Atar’s account did he stand here now. The stranger he may not have trusted as far as Tyelpë could have thrown him, but his father?

His father, he would have followed into Oblivion and back.

So he waited, and he watched, until suddenly, a light broke. Two glimmering lines, crossing one another as the man traced them out. The man made another gesture. And the lake burst from within with a silvery network of light, stretching over it’s dark surface. Like the veins of some living creature or like the spreading cracks over broken glass.

Despite himself Curufinwë’s breath caught and he found himself edging nearer. Atar too seemed unable to help himself, his eyes hungry as he watched on. Somewhere behind himself, Curufinwë was aware of Huan’s low growl and Tyelcormo’s own edginess, but…

As the man made another sign, the patterns of light changed, shifting, looking in one moment like the lines of a map, in another moment like constellations and stars he had never seen, and in the next…

 _“Writing…”_ Atar’s voice as he recognized it. No writing that either of them had ever seen or could be expected to know, but…

The Stranger meanwhile kept working, tapping at one of the quarters he’d drawn over the lake’s surface, only for the writing and lines to shift again into something else completely different. And then again, and then again, each moment the image over the lake’s surface appearing more and more a map. He didn’t look up from this once as he worked, only making an offhanded motion behind himself.

And that was when the earth moved. It was as if he had been a flea riding upon a giant’s back, and the giant were now rolling his shoulders. A wave went through the earth, the ground beneath his very feet giving a low groan and suddenly, caught in a wave of motion it was all Curufinwë and his father could do to stumble backwards and stay steady on their own two feet. Atar snapped at the stranger, who murmured something back, apparently unconcerned.

Atar only gritted his teeth, casting a bitter look at the man, but saying no more.

“What? What did he say?” Curufinwë pressed. That too only made him trust the man less, that he couldn’t _understand_ him, and apparently was the only one who _couldn’t_ understand the garble of bird-song and wind-whispers that was the man’s speech.

Atar said nothing, but Tyelcormo snorted, “He asked if Atar works any better himself, with someone breathing down his neck.”

Curufinwë shut his eyes, pressing out a long,low breath through his nose.

Meanwhile the network of constellations and lines grew all the denser, all the more twisting and complex. If Curufinwë did not know better, he might have said that the image were growing into some ghostly forest in itself, a tangle of trees and ivy, of ruins hiding in shadows and hill-sides, all just hovering over the lake like a mist. If he just stepped forward, it could all simply swallow him alive.

And far, far at the other side of the lake (map? forest?) a light glowed, brighter and sharper than all of the rest. Even now it was moving.

Curufinwë’s heart skipped a beat.What else could that light be _but_ his son? It took every ounce of his self-control to stay where he stood as he saw it, to not grab the Stranger by the shoulders and shake him, demanding he tell him where it was that they were looking at. 

The Stranger eyed the image before him for a moment. His shoulders tightened, just enough for Curufinwë to notice, before he pushed himself back to his feet again, made a motion with this hand, sweeping the image away, and turned back to meet both Curufinwë and Atar’s eyes.

The man was...slow in his speech, seeming to choose his words carefully. It set Curufinwë’s nerves on edge to hear that tone, to _not_ know what was being said in that moment, but to see the way Atar’s knuckles stood out so tight against his skin.

Huan and Tyelcormo came up behind him, and it was Tyelcormo who took pity enough to translate what was said for him.

“He says that he knows where it is Tyelpë travels now, at the least. His destination however…” 

“Tell me Tyelcormo, _where is he?_ ”

He could feel the Stranger’s gaze on him. Pittiless, appraising. The same sort of gaze that Curufinwë might have worn himself while choosing a gemstone for a new project. Curufinwë ignored him.

Seeing his brother's expression, Tyelcormo’s own gaze turned inwards, lips pressing into a thin line. It was Atar who spoke.

“We will need to discover the ones who took him to tell us _that.”_

As if this were some play put on in Tirion, as if this all were some tale Kano were telling around whilst the family were gathered about the Tonfui fire, The braying of a hunting horn broke suddenly over the trees. All three elves stood suddenly straightened, eyes spinning towards the sound.

The Stranger too glanced upward. He stepped forward. Looked almost as though he were waiting.

And that, as the thunder of horse’s hooves grew like the approach of an oncoming storm, Curufinwë liked the least.


	6. Chapter 6

He recognized those horns. The same sound that called him from his dreams. Huan’s ears, too, pricked at the sound, and Tyelcormo pulled himself straighter, eyes snapping in it’s direction.

That bone-stirring rumble of an uncountable herd stampeding towards you. The whoops and taunting laughter carried on the air. The haunting moan of the horn, and the baying of the hounds, oddly seeming to grow more echoing and distant as they grew the nearer. But it wasn’t the strangeness of any of it that got to Tyelco. No, of course not. Rather, it was that he _knew_ these sensations, that they were as familiar to him as the the feeling of his own stride or the sound of Huan’s panting breaths.The air nearly pulsing with a heartbeat of its own, feeling sharp as it came into the lungs, and he could nearly feel the powerful muscle of the horses beneath him as they crashed through the trees, coming nearer. To ride and feel those horses break into a run, it was like an awakening. It was to come alive again. That was what a Hunt was, chaos, noise, _life,_ driving onward. Always onward.

And he could feel that pulse now, even from the ground, even separate from them. It called, yet at the same time it repelled. It prickled at the skin, electric. Made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end -- an echo of the ecstasy he felt riding amongst Oromë’s folk. He could feel his muscles pulling bow-sting taught, ready to leap off in a run. Out of his own control it was instinct, the very air whispering to him, _Run now, Run! You are prey now,_ even as it also called, _Come join us! Ride with us! Let us take you away to be a part of our company…_

Tyelcormo licked at his lips. Gave his head a sharp shake. No. _No._ What was this? He had to focus now. He was out here for a _reason._ Tyelpë.They had to find _Tyelpë._

But the night air was stirring, cool and sweet in his lungs and tasting of something he both knew and didn’t. It was as though every star in the heavens had turned it’s eyes upon him and every tree in the surrounding forest was calling for him in the hissing clatter of their leaves.

It was the flash of his father’s knife in Telperion’s light that brought him back. That had Tyelco reaching for his own . It felt safer somehow, more grounding. Like the only solid thing in the world at that moment.

“That will not serve you here. Put it away.” The stranger’s voice. As calm, as firm, as cool as ever. It was the same bloody trick that Curvo used so often, one that had always escaped him.

Atar only scoffed at this, and Tyelco only found himself grasping all the tighter to his own blade as Atar snapped something to the Stranger in Valarin. It was worse than stones grinding against one another, the way the sounds made his teeth stand on edge.

“Atar, I do not like this.” Curvo. Atar cut himself off to listen. “Something is coming this way, it feels almost _planned._ What if we were brought out here to _meet_ whoever comes? 

At this Atar’s eyes narrowed, gaze sharpening to a needle point. More Valarin. This time, accusatory. 

The stranger sighed, the tone of his voice making clear that he’d said well enough before, “I do not know who this _‘Melkor’_ of yours _is.”_

And here it was Tyelcormo’s turn to scoff. Unwise, perhaps to antagonize their only lead on his nephew’s whereabouts, but it was either to focus on the obvious _lies_ coming dripping from the man’s lips or to that chorus of carried on the wind, intent of drawing him into the deep shadows of the trees.

He needed...he needed to _focus._ Atar and the Stranger were still talking. Well, they were not _talking_ at the moment, but the stubborn looks traveling between them communicated well enough Atar starred the man down, but his gaze was met in equal measure.

“You do not wish to cause offense. Put your knife away.” The stranger, this _Raven King_ murmured.

A Moment passed, then a moment more. The thunder of Horse’s hooves grew the nearer and the blazing white flash of the hound’s bodies could be seen through the trees. _Beautiful creatures_ , Tyelco could not help but think.

Finally, grudgingly, Atar shoved his knife back into its scabbard again, barking something back to Tyelco and Curvo.

“Atar, why...” Curvo was arguing. Tyelco wasn’t paying attention.

His mind was spinning, edging towards that familiar wild high that he felt every time his horse plunged into a gallop, every time the chase was on. The world itself felt almost unreal somehow, like a sheet of rain that could be blown aside with a strong enough gust of wind. And his nails clawing into his palm, the solidness of the knife handle he held was all that kept him clutching to reality…

_Come join us! Come ride with us!_

_“No!”_ It came out a strangled shout, and Suddenly Tyelco was aware of a pair of dark eyes boring into his own.

The Stranger’s head just canted to the side, eyes narrowing in thought. Tyelco’s feet remained rooted to the spot, and even as this Raven King approached, the hunter’s own gaze kept flickering back over the stranger’s shoulder, off towards the trees and the ever nearing company. 

The stranger’s gaze darted down to Tyelco’ hands. He murmured something to himself, Tyelcormo couldn’t quite catch it. _“Clever instincts…”_ He would have guessed the words were, if forced to it. 

The man’s hands came up, were wrapping around Tyelcormo’s own fingers. Tyelco flinched back. Huan snarled. But the stranger remained, prying open the elf’s hand with a surprising gentleness as he slipped the blade up and into Tyelcormo’ grasp. 

He spoke...words Tyelcormo _couldn’t_ quite wrap his mind about, cold and ringing as the hammer in the forge, and a shooting pain --as though the steel of the blade had buried itself into the flesh of his hand -- pierced through Tyelco. The world flashed white for an instant, and it felt as though he could barely move for the agony of it.

When his vision cleared, he was staring into the Raven King’s eyes once more.“Remember your purpose here.” Was all the man said, before stepping away again, and turning back to face the Hunt now gathered all before them.

They were a troop of wild figures, some clad in clinging garments of tattered furs and leathers, and iridescent feathers, others in tunics and robes woven from...from things Tyelcormo couldn’t recognize --or rather he _could_ but to say it aloud would be utter madness! Autumn Evenings and Forest Mists…

At their head rode their leader, his hair a wild mass of curls who’s color brought to mind nothing so much as autumn leaves and leaping sparks. Wide-shouldered and tall, with eyes that danced with reflected torchlight, he seemed to Tyelco’s eyes so sharply cut out from the shadows that surrounded him. His mind couldn’t help but travel to the golden-warm light of the campfires of those nights he spent camping out with Oromë’s hunt, of the laughter and joy of his own companions as they sat ‘round, figures emerging from the obscurity of those surrounding shadows into the flickering light. The echoes of that laughter played at the edge of his hearing now, while in his chest rose that restless joy, and more then that. That fleeting sense he got when sitting beneath the wide field of stars above, or when riding along the roots of the Pelori, and seeing the mountains tower above him. And all of that wrapped in the man who stood before them, who’s eyes were raking over both he and Huan.

Celegorm found himself standing straighter, feeling that gaze on him. And in snaked that thought, whispering at the back of his mind, _Yes, I could follow him…_

A jolt. A piercing, spasming agony stabbing through his hand, flashing white again before his eyes. His ears rang, as though he were entering Atar’s forge. 

“...With _friends_ this time as well I see!” The Huntsman’s voice, reaching him as his vision cleared. Speaking to the Raven King. “And were _you_ not just warning _us_ of the dangers of such things?”

Tyelcormo blinked, both breath and body shaking. His eyes dropped down to his hand, still grasping that knife blade...but still whole….

He shook himself, trying to push off the half-formed thoughts still drifting through his mind. _Tyelpë. He was out here to find Tyelpë._

There was a low, questioning whine from Huan. _“Are you alright? What did he do to --”_

 _“No, No, I am...fine. Fine.”_ Tyecomo felt off to even be saying it somehow. But..he was. His mind in fact felt far clearer than it had before…

And now, thinking on it, there was something about the question the Hunstaman asked that Tylcormo did not like, not with the way the Huntsman was looking at them, sizing them up like harts for the kill.

~*~

It was not a question the Raven King himself much liked either. A trap, either to expose hypocrisy on his part, or to feel out whether these men here, these ‘ _friends’_ as the Huntsman -- Sacha was the name he used here -- called them, were free for the taking. There was no _good_ answer of course. There rarely were in such situations. And so John said nothing, simply shrugging the words off as though they _were_ nothing, not even worthy of his consideration.

To this, Sacha simply laughed. He quickly shook his head, swatting aside his own words as though they were so many buzzing flies. “Oh, but no matter, _I_ certainly hold nothing against you. Is that Prince Fëanáro I see?” He leaned forward on his horse, eyeing John’s guide, before slipping down and striding nearer.

The Hound lept, suddenly between the Sidhe and John’s guide, leaning down low, teeth bared as he snarled. 

In surprise Sacha stepped back, his eyes wide, yet in a moment he was laughing once more. “Ah! And one of Arōmēz’s mighty hounds as well! Which means…”

He was gone, suddenly there behind John, standing there before the Rider, lips curling into a cat’s grin. “The third one, the hunter. And a handsome one he is, as well…” Sacha reached up, as though to brush his hand along the Rider’s jawline, but the man stumbled backwards.

John’s guide-- Fëanáro, apparently -- nearly growled. “Get away from my son.”

Blunt, perhaps too much so, though here at least John could not fault him. The man protected what was his. Would he, himself have not drawn such a line just as clearly?

The other son -- the father of the boy who was missing, that was -- was bristling by now, reaching again for his knife, and the hound was now wildly barking, readying itself to pounce on the Sidhe.

By the time the Hound bounded forward though, even as the missing boy’s father had freed blade from scabbard, Sacha was gone, once more standing before Fëanáro. A brief drama was quickly unfolding across his features. His brows shot up, and he looked at Fëanáro as though he’d just been shouted at by an ant-hill he’d kicked over (truth to tell, he likely would have been _less_ surprised by shouting ant-hills). That surprise lasted only a moment though, before his expression morphed into a wide grin.

“Ah! You _must_ forgive me!” The Sidhe said, hand to heart and bowing his head, “To speak of you without speaking _to_ you! How rude indeed! I had no idea that you might understand, however! And, of course, young Starling here” He gestured back towards John at this, as John gnawed at the inside of his lip, forcing down rising irritation, “Does not speak Quenya.” 

With the sort of whimsicality that could be posessed _only_ by one of the Sidhe, Sacha immediately brightened then,“But that is no matter now, of course. Though I must admit I am rather surprised at running across you out here! Should you not be in Tirion, astounding all with your latest creation?”

There was silence in that first moment, as Fëanáro stood there, blinking. Just trying to trace out just how the conversation had found itself _here._ Despite himself, The Raven King could not help but find himself just _slightly_ amused by it. Going by the expression the man wore, it seemed Fëanáro was not often one to find himself dumbfounded. All through the Huntsman’s speech he’d looked suitably unimpressed, and now that the Sidhe was here speaking to him as though they were old friends?

“And who are you to ask?” Fëanáro asked, finally finding his voice.

_Painfully_ blunt, and with a Prince’s pride.. The Raven King sighed from where he stood watching. He should expect no different of course.He should have recognized it from the first. The man _had_ the pride of a King’s son, after all -- and there shone a sign one could spot whether it was Faerie, England, France or Scotland who’s earth they stood upon. No, the Raven King knew the air royalty carried about it by now. He was unsurprised.

He was not _pleased_ with it -- neither that pride nor whatever rash actions would be taken to soothe it. But he was _unsurprised._

And now _,_ before things grew too out of hand, it seemed he would have to intervene…

“He is a Sidhe Lord,” John interjected, “and perhaps one of the mightiest within the regions of Faerie that border your realm.” Perhaps the flattery would mollify Sacha. He was hoping at least the words would give the Prince hint enough to get him to _stop talking._

“ _Quite._ Who am I indeed!” Sacha scoffed, turning back to John, “I would advise you against taking with you such an ill-mannered creature --”

“ _What_ did you just--”

The rest came out a strangled sound, leaving Fëanáro wide eyed and clutching at his throat. His sons were shouting, just behind John, rushing towards their father as he gasped, mouth working, yet no sound emerging.

“ _Really_ now!” The Sidhe rolled his eyes, and he let his hand fall back to his side and turned to John, saying so casually, “I am half tempted to kill him, you know. The night’s hunt has been frustrating enough as it is.”

The tension in the air suddenly increased a thousandfold, underlined by a low snarl from the hound, as it’s master’s eyes flashed.

The look alone that the Raven King gave the Sidhe was a warning in and of itself.

“Oh, you know I would _never_. There are _laws_ and _customs_ , after all, and I am no barbarian! They are _yours,_ these Elves, and I would not interfere!” 

The Raven King responded with a low hum. “Yet all I have seen would suggest otherwise.”

Sparks lit in Sacha’s eyes. “Oh, is that so, now? Is something amiss, young Starling?”

A shrug was all the Magician gave in reply, as his gaze glanced back over the Huntsman’s shoulder. “You are missing two amongst your number.” He murmured.

“Hrmmm?” The Sidhe’s brows shot up and he glanced backwards. “Ah! So it seems!”

“Who is it?”

“Come again?”

“Who left?”

“Why, Starling, What interest you seem to be taking in the going on of my court!”

A faint smile just touched at the Raven King’ lips. It was not a pleasant smile. “Should I not? I came here in hopes of solidifying an alliance with you, after all.” The rest of that sentance, _‘I should hate to leave instead an enemy.’_ was left to hangsilently upon the air.

There was a moment, just briefly, where Sacha held the Magician under his gaze, regarding him almost thoughtfully. 

“I have had some trouble in keeping track of Tethil recently. He has always been one of my more flighty companions, of course, and since his cousin arrived in my realm for a visit…?”

“Cousin?”

“Oh, I forget his name...some young Lord or King from the other side of Faerie, nearer to your own realm I believe...”

“I see.” Nearer to his own realm...huh, well it seemed now this short detour was now spanning across Faerie...

“If either have crossed you, I should like to know about it.” Sacha went on. The corner of John’s lips quirked upward at the tone in his voice. If they were crossing him, they were endangering this alliance for their Lord. Getting in his way. And that, John doubted, he would appreciate much at all.

“Perhaps I shall leave it to you then. For now however…”

“Yes, you must find them, I suppose?”

“Indeed. Better luck on your hunt, Sacha”

“And I wish you the same on yours, Starling.”

And with those words the Huntsman turned and mounted his horse again. Heels digging into the magnificent creature’s side, he urged it onward, plunging into the night air, cloaks and manes swirling and snapping behind them as the shining company thundered past. 

Even before the distant rumble of hooves against the hard packed earth stopped echoing in the Magician’s bones, he was turning to face the other three. They had already gathered together, each with a face like granite as they stared John down 

“Enough of this.” It was the Rider who spoke, standing nearest to John. “ _what_ was that? You owe us something of an explanation. We go no further with you until we know just what is going on.”

 _Until you know what happened to **you** … _John could not help but think. The man was still grasping onto his knife blade, only sliding it away, back into it’s scabbard once he realized that the Raven King was indeed looking. It had been a patchwork of a spell, that he knew. He’d not had enough time to do the magic _properly_ of course, to call upon the bees and the moon --if she could even hear him here! But it seemed it had served him well enough, in the circumstance. 

_Nail his hand with an iron nail so that he shall not raise it to do the deceiver's bidding._

Or, well, a hunting knife could serve just as well in a pinch.

“Then that is your choice to make.” The Raven King replied, quite simply. Fëanáro and the lost boy’s father were now turning, wide eyed, on the Rider, clearly with something to say for themselves about this. About why it sounded as though their business were now finished. Why would they not have? _They_ were the ones who needed _his_ help, after all.

The Rider simply smirked, however, nodding back towards the Trees. Out of the corner of his vision John could just catch the motion of white flapping wings. A hoot as the bird settled on a nearby branch. “Yes, and I am sure Lady Varda will be glad to hear that you have gone.” 

Clumsy. But it was a _start_ now…

John canted his head to the side, brows edging up his forehead.“I _owe_ it to you, is that so?” he repeated.

“Yes.” The Rider insisted, staring stone-faced right back at John. 

“No. I _owe_ you nothing.” Indeed considering what he had just saved the man from it rather seemed the other way around. But John gave a shrug and there was a short pause. The Raven King raked his eyes over the Rider, and the missing boy’s father beside him. “That said, I will _tell_ you, if only to prevent any further foolishness along the way.”

At this the Magician’s eyes fell squarely upon Fëanáro, who opened his mouth to protest --only for silence to emerge.

“Now,” the Raven King said, crossing his legs beneath him as he sat upon the forest floor, looking as at home in that very spot as he might have upon a throne, “Where shall I begin?”


	7. Chapter 7

An irritated click out past the corner of his lips -- it was all that Fëanáro could manage in that moment as the Stranger settled himself there in amongst the leaf litter, so blasé about the entire affair. As if a missing child were nothing extraordinary, and this silence now forced upon Fëanáro truly _were_ the only expected result of so-called ’foolishness!’ As if those hunters and the two encounters they had with them already were simply another facet of these woods, as much as a tree root twisting upon the path or an unevenness in the terrain! As if the anger of three Elf-lords, dragged into all of this with no understanding whatsoever -- and from this Stranger’s actions, no hopes of one _unless_ cornered and forced from him -- were nothing at all!

“Look at him, “ Curvo was murmuring as they strode forward, closing that yard or so of distance between the Stranger and themselves. “He sits like a King holding court!” he gave a sharp snort, shaking his head as he eyed the man, there perched amongst creeping briars and undergrowth. Fëanáro slid his gaze back towards Curvo, only able to echo the sound in agreement. 

Tyelco edged his way to the side as Fëanáro neared, leaving him the place directly before the Stranger, this... _Starling_. He sank to the ground, moving to the man’s level and staring him directly in the eyes. He did not need to speak, the waiting silence made his intention clear enough. _Where to begin?_ It did not matter, they wanted to know _everything._ Who and what those hunters were? What they had done to Fëanáro himself, leaving him forced into this silence? What madness they must have possessed that even one amongst their number could think it their right to spirit themselves away with a child plucked right from his father’s arms? How he might even treat the boy and what they wanted with him? 

They wanted -- nay, _needed_ to know what they were up against. Scrabbling through the dark, in hopes of stumbling upon some crumb of knowledge by sheer luck, or having it _so graciously_ dropped by this man? No, Fëanárowas finished with it.

The silence hung heavy over all four gathered there, Fëanáro and the Stranger sitting across from one another. Tyelcormo crouching upon the ground nearby, Curufin standing off to the side and leaning against a nearby tree. It was only a moment or so before the stranger finally sighed and began to speak. It felt like an entire Age had passed.

“I did warn you that you did not wish to cause offense.” 

_Offense? OFFENSE?_ Fëanáro’s eyes widened in utter disbelief, but even as he was sitting there, forgetting the current state of affairs and opening his mouth to snap at the man, the Stranger was already shaking his head, holding up a hand for silence.

“They are changeable of mood. Moreso even than yourself. I would consider you rather fortunate in truth.”

A flat glower was all these words earned from Fëanáro. _Fortunate!_ Yes, well, surely _this_ man would think so! Would he take _notice_ were his voice suddenly stolen from him? So absorbed was he in his own thoughts and bitterness that Fëanáro barely noticed that Curvo was stirring, and only realized he had asked what was happening when Tyelcormo began to echo the conversation back to him in Quenya. 

“He could have made it so that every word you spoke emerge from your throat a cackling crow, if he had wished.” the Stranger stirred absently at a few of the dry leaves upon the ground before him, pausing before adding, "Or rather, if law and custom would have allowed." His eyes slipped up to Fëanáro again and he shrugged.

Telcormo was staring at the man, his own translation had cut off somewhere well before, mid-sentence, as he realized what he was saying, spinning on the Stranger and just...eyeing him. Trying to puzzle out if he were serious or not.

Fëanáro bit his tongue, pressing out a long, low breath slowly through his nose. He swept away the leaves scattered over the ground before him, knife flashing as he drew it from his belt.

The Stranger’s brows shot up. Even Curvo stood, leaning in closer at the sight.

The blade whined, a sound that made the elf’s nails itch as it caught and skipped over the stones in the earth. It hissed through the dirt, Fëanáro’s movements feirce, sharp, carving out a single word in the ground before him. 

_‘Who?’_

Tyelcormo read the word, glancing up between it and his father before nodding. Turning to the Stranger he began speaking in some odd combination of grunts and growls and twittering birdsong. Asking his question for him, Fëanáro could only assume. To which the Stranger replied:

“I have said it.”

Fëanáro snorted. _Said it?_ Tossed about the names of beings and places that neither he nor his sons had any frame of referance for, more like! Said these beings were things out of old folktales and children’s stories! What was he to make of a _Sidhe?_ Was he to simply hope those pretty bits of spiraled wire he left on his work-bench before beginning a new project would win him favor?

He doubted his frustration required any further interpretation from Tyelcomo, of course, but his son forged on ahead anyway. Less birdsong this time, more bear in his words

The stranger canted his head to the side, eyes flickering first from Tyelco, then to Curvo. “Hrmm. No.” He murmured. “I haven’t said much of it to _you_ , actually, have I?”

Tyelco pressed on.

“They are exactly as they appear to be, Hunters. Their Lord is the King of Love-Lost -- Sacha, I have been told he is called here.”

All of Fëanáro’s attention in that moment was on the Stranger. Later on, looking back on it he could picture it so clearly. A moment’s stillness falling over Curvo as those first tugging threads of recognition were pulled. The realization dawning across his features as he pushed himself suddenly upright.

But it was only the embellishment of time and hindsight.

“What? He could not have said --!” 

Fëanáro jerked upright, to suddenly have his son _there_ now, beside him and standing where before he’d merely been a figure out of the corner of his vision. And as he realized that he was _responding_ to the man? Well he was not the only one gathered there to find his head turning back, eyes fixed on his son as Curvo stared down at the Stranger with undisguised contempt.

“Is he trying to say that huntsman was _Sacha the fire-fay_?” 

Tyelcormo blinked,“You...recognize that name?”

“How can I not?” Curvo snorted, “The tales Tyelpë begs from Kano! _I_ could recite them all to you from memory, now, for how often he has listened to them! Does this man honestly expect us to believe that creatures from my son’s _bedtime stories_ are involved in this? What next? Is he to say that _Tethil Birdward_ was the one to snatch Tyelperinquar away to begin with? Or was it Tinfang Warble?”

There was an odd sort of silence that settled over Tyelcormo, and even seemed to touch at Fëanáro in that moment --as though even if he _could_ speak right then, he would not _want_ to. And could they be blamed? It _did_ sound like madness after all! 

Unable to respond, Fëanáro glowered at the Stranger, Was he not at the root of this after all?

Meanwhile, the man in question simply leaned back, as though the events unfolding before him were some play put on for his pleasure!

Shifting awkwardly where he sat, Tyelcormo went on to say, “The Huntsman did…ah,. _mention_ something of that. Of a man called Tethil being among those not amongst his company…”

Curvo just stood there for a solid moment. “What?” A sharp, derisive breath escaped him, and he turned back to Fëanáro, seeming to seek out his support here. “Atar, you cannot _believe_ this….”

And could he? Even sitting here now, his grandson missing and his voice apparently stolen away at the whim of one of these beings, it did seem the stuff out of old, forgotten legends. Mistakes and Misbeliefs who’s roots lie in Cuiviénen. But his grandson _was_ missing. His life lie at stake now…

He smoothed away what he had written before, now carving out, “ _Does not matter. ”_

There came a harsh, disbelieving laughter, as Curufinwë read the words. His hand cut suddenly through the air. “Fine then!” He said “My son has been spirited away by a flitting creature that makes his home inside a poppy. Who then,” And here Curvo turned, stopping just before the stranger, looming down over him, “Are _you,_ to know so much of these... _Oromandi.”_

Tyelcomo translated the question, while the stranger’s eyes drew up to meet Curvo’s own. 

“A man once very like your son.” The stranger replied.

They were words to make Fëanáro’s hackles rise, feeling like a mockery to hear the man speak them. And Perhaps that was why Tyelcormo hesitated in repeating them for his brother -- knowing that Curufinwë would take them no better than Fëanáro himself.

“What? What does he say Tyelco?”

“That -- that he was taken by them himself.”

Curvo scoffed. “Likely enough a tale! Did you not see how that Huntsman regarded him? Certainly as no captive or thrall I could imagine!”

The Stranger’s brows drew together, as Tyelcormo repeated his brother’s words to him, the corners of his lips tugging downwards as silently he regarded Curvo. Strange. If he did not know better, Fëanáro might have believed the man were _surprised._ “You think this a lie?”

“Have we reason to believe otherwise? To _trust_ you at all?” Curvo replied, “What do we know of you? Not even a Name!”

Tyelcormo repeated the words back to the man, before pausing, gaze drawing inward as he tugged absently at a strand of hair unfurling from it’s braid, “The Huntsman called him--” And here he repeated the name the Huntsman had used, that word that meant _‘Starling.’_

The leaves the Stranger absently flipped about on the dirt were crushed suddenly in his hand.. “ _That”_ He said, “is _not_ my name.”

Fëanáro’s brows shot up, and despite himself the barest edge of a smirk touched at his lips. So it seemed he had been correct in his assessment of the man’s behavior earlier. Well. At least there was _one_ way past that irritating cool he kept…

“Well thank _Eru_ for that…” Curvo drawled. ( Fëanáro did not blame him, the name was about as twisting as the man’s manner) “And what _is_ , then?”

“I rather thought it the custom that one introduces _themselves_ first. ”

By now Fëanáro’s nails were digging so deeply into his palms it felt as though they might break through. His jaw was tight and lips barely more than a line as he fought against every blade-edged word he was forced to hold inside. Still grasping onto his knife, his fist fell with a solid _thunk_ against the earth. Tyelcormo too shot the man back a sharp look, even as he spoke the words, and as he turned back to Curvo his expression clearly read that they were companions in frustration. All three of them were, in that moment. What childish attempt at a power-play was this? Here, _now?_

But there seemed only one path forward, and so Curvo knelt down, the look in his eyes plainly daring the man to continue on in his games, “I am Curufinwë Atarinkë, the Son of Prince Curufinwë Fëanáro of the Noldor.” He gestured towards Fëanáro, and then towars Tyelco,“My brother is Turkafinwë Tyelcormo. And you?”

Finally, apparently satisfied, the man managed a straight answer! “You may call me John Uskglass.”

_“_ Uskglass, then _._ ”Curvo said, sounding almost as though he were testing out the name with it’s strange shape, “You play these games -- _whilst my son is still missing! --_ and then wonder why we do not trust you?”

For a long moment Uskglass was silent, simply giving the three elves a flat look. He shut his eyes, pressed out a long breath --As though it were Tyelcormo, Curufinwë, and Fëanáro who were the issue here!

“It is not... _my way_ to be as straightforward as you wish.” Uskglass finally murmured. He dragged a hand back through his hair. Slowly lifted his head, looking from elf to elf. “And to be frank, I do not particularly care _how_ it is you feel about me. As your father said, it does not matter.”

Fëanáro threaded his knife through his fingers, only giving a soft snort in response. He glanced towards the man, his lips tugging to the side. Curvo scoffed. 

“The Sidhe who stole your son -- these Oromandi as you call them -- how far does your knowledge of them go?” Uskglass asked.

The knife flashed as Fëanáro turned it in his hands, carving out the words, _“We are not children, to be spoken so to.”_ into the dirt.

The corners of Tyelcormo’s lips quirked upwards as he read the words, a grim sort of smirk, before he turned to Uskglass repeating his father’s words.

“And yet, what do you know of them?”

Silence.

“They count the hills and the stars amongst their allies and the Alder and the Oak are their friends. They are _not_ of a mind with you. They may even seem cruel, arbitrary. Mad.” Uskglass sighed, beginning to push himself up onto his feet.

He shut his eyes, turning his face up towards the sky, stretching his long limbs out behind him. “You would do best to follow me and do as I say. You do not understand these Sidhe -- and I do.” 

Fëanáro stared up at Uskglass from beneath his brows. He pushed a harsh sigh past his lips, shoving himself to his feet. _Mad ? Arbitary?_ They seemed words best suited to describing this man before them!

“And what does that say of _you?”_ Curvo asked, apparently sharing this thought.

Uskglass merely smirked. “Perhaps a bit of Madness would serve you well.” and with those words he turned on his heel and began walking away.

Tyelcormo and Curvo cried out, Huan bounding off, begining to chase after the man. But Uskglass did not respond. Instead he reached out his hand, stretching it out over the Lake’s surface. But he called back to the Elves, “Are you coming then, or not?” The man did not turn back once during any of this, but instead simply stepped forward and dissapeared beneath the water.


	8. Chapter 8

The lake’s surface was still. An ink black mirror for the night above, reflecting the trees, the stars, and the figures of the elves and hound gathered upon the shoreline, all rippling shadow figures in Telperion’s light.

“Do you see anything?”

“Nothing. It’s…” The air shifted beside Fëanáro, Tyelcormo’s form flickering into the corner of his vision, striding forward and wading through cat-tails, leaning forward. He could picture his son’s eyes narrowing, even without looking up himself from the water’s glassy surface. Tyelcormo let out a low curse. “Do you think he’s drowned?”

“Even _you_ do not sound like you believe that.” Curvo drawled.

“Well, where else could he have gone? One does not simply….” Tyelcormo’s hand swatted through the air, as though he were grasping for flies, “Well, _vanish._ It makes no sense! _”_

“And neither does stepping out into the middle of a lake to _drown_ oneself. Nothing _about_ the man could in any way be construed as ‘ _making sense..._ ’” Curvo went on, still speaking, but Fëanáro wasn’t paying attention. His eyes had flickered upwards, drawing towards Tyelcomo. He frowned.

No, the man would not have drowned here. He should not have _disappeared_ here. The water was too shallow, only lapping at Tyelcomo’s knees as he stood amidst the weeds. _Where…_

Fëanáro’s eyes narrowed, staring down into the water as the voices of his sons passed back and forth above his head, small things battling back the uncaring silence of the night. The water’s surface remained just as uncaring, just as unchanged. Opaque as any dusky mirror glass and promising just as few answers.

He pushed his breath out all in a sharp snort. No. It was not that simple, and _he_ did not simply turn aside just because the truth of things was not immediately apparent. _Nothing_ was ever accomplished that way.

What _was_ this trick then…?

As he inched forward, nearer towards the water Fëanáro found himself moving to his hands and knees, leaning over the lake’s surface. So still and flat, seeing his own reflection as it was, on the threshold of this darkness, it could have almost seemed a window...a door into another place entirely….

But…

_No._

It could not be so simple!

He reached his hand out, slowly slipping it beneath the surface. The tips of his fingers met those of his reflection, before cutting through and sinking down, only….

Fëanáro’s eyes widened. He snatched his hand back, suddenly sitting there kneeling on the shoreline, staring at his hand.

“Atar what is it? Did you find--” Curvo,speaking up. Curvo suddenly cutting himself off, likely finding that he too was starting to sound just as mad as everyone else that night and catching himself before he could finish.

_Completely dry…._

“Atar? Atar!” Tyelcormo this time. 

Fëanáro looked up glancing between the both of them. He shook his head, reaching for his knife again.

 _“Down there.”_ He carved the words into the earth, _“Follow.”_

“To the bottom of the _lake?_ Atar…” Curvo stood blinking at his father, groping for words. Fëanáro had to grit his teeth to see it! Oh, it was a dead end a child could see, he was sure, and here Curvo was, searching for any way to give his father an out. To prove he had not entirely lost his mind as well!

Quickly shaking his head, Fëanáro dug his knife into the earth again. _“No.”_ His fingers danced along the knife handle as he searched for the words. _“Not beneath water.”_ Beneath what then? Through _what_ then? His eyes flickered out towards the lake again, and the images wavering over it’s surface…

His breath came in sharp.

_“Refection.”_

“‘Reflection?’ _What_ \--”

The rest would never be spoken. Impatience at Curvo’s questioning, The need to find his grandson again, or perhaps merely his own impulsiveness -- that need to know what lie beyond if it was _not_ the water of the lake, how his hand was left so dry and unaffected by the pool surrounding it -- Fëanáro couldn't have said which it was. Perhaps it was some combination of all of them. Perhaps it did not really matter.

Fëanáro had risen to his feet and was leaping through the reflections shivering upon the lake’s surface. Falling, water crashing all around him, his sons calling out --

His feet landed upon solid dark stone. A chill breeze cut through, stirring at Fëanáro’s hair. And there, arms crossed over his chest and brows raised, as though to ask what had taken so long, stood John Uskglass.

~*~

His sons and Tyelcormo’s Hound followed not moments later, breathless and glancing about as though...well, as though the entire world had changed in an instant.

How was he to describe it? It was a place unlike any Fëanáro had ever seen before, had ever _imagined_ to see -- well, any save one. Wide stone corridors and branching pathways all stretching off far and away past the horizon, towering archways and winding staircases that drew up to levels he knew not where -- the overwhelming impression of the place was one of _vastness,_ of an entire realm unto itself. 

As a child, his mind would be given to wander back to his mother, to wonder where it was her spirit now roamed, what it was that lie within those fabled, western-most halls of the Doomsman of the Valar, ever growing as the world aged, prison to Melkor, unseen by mortal eyes. It would be an endless, labyrinthine place, his child’s mind had decided, all of dark stone and lit with it’s own gloomy light. Impossible to escape from -- was that not how all of the tales went? -- not merely for the impenetrableness of the fortress itself, but for how easily one could get lost within it’s endlessly twisting corridors. That image of Míriel wandering an endless journey through those halls, unable to return to either Fëanáro or his father, her figure so small, nearly devoured by all that surrounded her, was one that had so often haunted Fëanáro’s nightmares as a child. A nightmare that had returned to him again and again throughout his life.

And now, here he stood, in a place that could have stood alongside any one of those nightmares, and he would not have been able to tell any difference between them. Again another chill breeze blew through, raising goosebumps long Fëanáro’s arms. The air smelled of rain.

“Where...What….” That was Curvo’s voice, the words murmured so quietly as his eyes flickered about and he took a step back. _“How…?”_

Huan’s nails scraped across the stone floors of the corridors as he and Tyelcomo wandered, pacing up and down the way, the hound’s nose and Tyelco’s eyes taking in all that surrounded them hungrily, as if to see more of this place, to gather more of it’s sense about them, were to somehow assure them that it was all real, that they were not still dreaming after all. 

“The road.” Uskglass said suddenly, his voice, soft as it was, still managing to drag Fëanáro’s attention back to him, if only through the shere assurance it possessed alone. The assurance of a man who is the most knowledgeable in the room -- Fëanáro knew it well. And it was not an attitude that earned the man much of Fëanáro’s favor.

Uskglass was, as ever, unbothered by the flat look he received from the Noldorin prince however, merely continuing on. “I kept the gate open for you, that you might step through.” He was nodding towards Curvo as he spoke the words -- an answer to the questions flashing through his son’s mind. Through _all_ of their minds. A translation clearly was not necessary, not in this moment to understand what they all must have been thinking.

Fëanáro did not translate Uskglass’s words back for Curvo, however, instead simply staring the man down.

Uskglass quirked a brow at him, which quickly morphed into a flicker of realization. “Ah, _Right.”_ The man gave a careless wave of his hand, making a motion towards Fëanáro’s throat, turning on his heel even as he did so, and motioning for the others to follow after him.

_“No.”_

It was the first word Fëanáro had spoken since their meeting with the Huntsman, that... _Sacha_ earlier that evening and it felt almost to rise to his lips of it’s own accord. The eyes of both of his sons had fallen upon him, as Fëanáro stood his ground. As Uskglass stopped, turning a glance back over his shoulder towards him, both Tyelco and Curvo closed in nearer to their father. Forming a knot around him. There to stand by his side as they ever were.

Uskglass simply quirked his brow. His head canted just to the side, he might have looked almost _amused,_ not even turning to fully face Fëanáro or his sons. He said nothing, however, simply waiting.

“Do you expect us to follow you not knowing where it is you lead?” Fëanáro demanded.

In response the man simply spread his arms, as though to gesture to the winding corridors and pathways stretching out all about them. As if to say, _‘You already have.’_

But Fëanáro simply pushed on, “No. My son has said it already, we have had _enough_ of these games. This is _our family --_ my grandson, Curufinwë’s son -- thatwe are trying to free from the hands of whatever being has stolen him, and if you are on our side we _must know_ what it is that we are doing, that _you_ are planning. We are not pawns on a playing board to be pushed about, we are not unquestioning servants to do as we are told --”

Uskglass sighed, now _finally_ turning more fully towards them, “No,” he said, “You are a Prince and a Prince’s sons.”

 _“Uskglass…”_ The warning in Fëanáro’s voice was enough that Curvo lay a hand at his shoulder -- a reminder to keep his own head about him, or to hold Fëanáro back should he need to?

Shaking his head, Uskglass simply took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “The boy is not in a region of Faerie so close to your realm any longer -- not, at least if what we have been told is to be believed. The Sidhe Lord who took him holds his realm in a region much closer to my own. That is where we go. To find him, in England.”

For a long moment more, both men stared one another down, Uskglass’s expression unreadable, whilst Fëanáro’s gaze was searching, as though if he only looked hard enough he could simply read off whatever other answers he wanted from somewhere within the man’s soul.

“This is your road?” It was Fëanáro who finally spoke, breaking the silence between them, “The one that you built?”

A shrug, the faintest of smirks. It was the only reply the man gave. It said enough, however.

“Then lead the way.”

~*~

There was the distant sound of water, rushing off somewhere Tyelcormo could not quite place. Beside him, the clack of Huan’s claws against stone. All else was silence. By now, of course, even in as short a time as they had known him, Tyelco supposed nothing less was to be expected of Uskglass. Even now the man could very well have been walking on his own and Tyelco doubted it would have made very much of a difference at all. He stood apart (at a perfect distance -- Tyelco could not help but take dry note of -- for Atar’s iron-hard stare to bore into his back) only glancing back at distant and random intervals in order to ensure he had not lost his companions along the way. No words of comfort or attempts at conversation, no word on what this _Engelond_ (for that was how Uskglass had pronounced the name of this distant region, this...entire world other than Tyelcormo’s own) of his was like or what they could expect there. 

Atar, of course, was much taken up with his own brooding, silently fuming at the man leading them onwards. Perhaps he was even plotting some new way around Uskglass’s silence, and his damned refusal to say anything more than what he _wanted_ to say. It was only Atar’s way, after all. To plunge into the unknown and crack open the secrets of creation -- why should the will of one man prove any stronger than the adamant and granite? The pressure and heat in the depths of the earth? The very nature of light itself?

And meanwhile, Curvo remained as unreadable as ever, his pace even and keeping in stride with the others, his mouth shut and silent. But his eyes...his eyes kept flickering about, from Uskglass to Atar to the twisting stone corridors and pathways about them. As they came approaching a bridge, the end of which they could not even see from the side they stood upon, the wind picked up again, and the sky opened up above them. It stood a dome of leaden clouds, tinged a deep blue -- the sort of color the sky would turn at the Mingling, though lacking the gentle hints of silver and gold that twined through the air. A wide, desolate moor stretched out beneath them, also tinged in that strange, gloomy light.

“Where does it come from, I wonder?” Curvo asked, sounding more as though he were speaking to himself than anything else.

“Hrmm? What?” Tyelco asked him.

“The light. It looks like nothing I’ve seen from Telperion or Laurelin. It cannot be starlight either…”

“I..I don’t know. It is strange isn’t it?”

Curvo gave a bitter laugh. “ _It makes no sense!_ None of this does. Ai! My son has been stolen and all that has come after it has been complete madness! Perhaps this is all simply...perhaps I am still….ai! _perhaps_ …” But whatever it was that was on his brother’s mind, Tyelcomo never learned, for Curvo drew up into himself once more, falling again to his unfathomable silence.

More time passed. Tyelcormo sighed. _“And what is it you think of all of this?”_ he asked, turning to Huan.

_“He is strange, this Raven King, and this forest of stone that he calls his own…”_

_“A forest?” Tyelcormo teased, “Ai! An odd sort of forest this is!”_

_“And what else to call it? For it stretches in all directions and ways, where one could so easily become lost.”_

_“A Road he says it is. Though where it might lead…”_

_“Perhaps it might be better to question where it does **not** lead.”_

Despite himself, Tyelcomo could not help the sharp snort of laughter that escaped him. But he soon had Atar and Curvo’s eyes turning on him, quickly sobering him once more.

 _“Still. It is...dreary here.”_ Tyelco murmured.

_“Fitting for the man. Although….dreary does not necessarily mean wicked.”_

_“Hrmmm…”_ Tyelco’s gaze turned out to watch Uskglass ahead of them, _“Do not tell me you are beginning to like him.”_

_“No. I...do not know what to make of him. But…”_

_“What?”_

_“You know what.”_

He did know --or rather, he did not know at all, and that was exactly what the problem was. But Uskglass had done _something_ with his knife. Might have even saved him, protected him -- though from what exactly and how…

Tyelcormo merely shook his head, turning back to Huan and absently flexing his hand.

_“Come.”_ He said, quite suddenly.

 _“What?”_ The hound asked, _“Were?”_

 _“Huh. Likely to find ourselves empty handed and disappointed again!”_ Tyelcomo responded, and yet still he began walking on ahead anyway.

At first the approaching sounds of Hound and elf seemed to have gone unnoticed by the man, yet after a moment or two his eyes flicked back towards Tyelco. 

“Tukafinwë Tyelcomo,” The man murmured, “And how does your hand feel?”

They were not the words Tyelco expected to be greeted with at all, and he found himself blinking, staring at Uskglass for a solid minute. He couldn’t see much of the man's face, turned away from him as it was, yet, just briefly he was sure he’d seen the corners of his eyes crinkle as though he were smirking!

_“Do you find me amusing, then?”_ Tyelcormo snapped.

Uskglass simply shrugged. “Not the question I had expected of you at all…” 

Tyelcormo bit his tongue, grimacing back at the man.

The moment stretched out, silently. Uskglass turned facing Tyelcormo more fully, looking him up and down, before sighing. Turning away again.

 _“I **have** come to speak. ” _Tyelcomo pressed. 

“Then do so.”

Shaking his head, Tyelcormo tried quickly to collect himself. _“You know what it is I would ask. You’ve already made mention of it.”_

“Huh. Yes. Perhaps. The Hunt then? You would know of them? Or is it what I have done to you?”

 _“Yes.”_ A pause, long and reluctant. He did not like to have to speak these words, not to a stranger, and to _this_ stranger perhaps the least. And yet…

And yet who else could he ask of this? 

_“They...I felt...something when they were near. It was like…”_

“A call?” Uskglass supplied.

 _“I suppose.”_ An irresistible call, a pull that reached out for him, summoning something in his very blood itself… Just to remember it, he could feel the echoes of some distant ache. Huan leaned down, nuzzling his nose against Tyelcormo’s shoulder.

“They would have had you ride with them. Join their hunt, and leave all else behind. But I imagine you have gathered as much.”

Tyelco shrugged. _“Why, though? To what end?”_

“Because they wanted to. Perhaps Sacha took a liking to you. Or perhaps it was because of who you are that you felt it. He called you a hunter….”

What was he to make of that answer? Tyelcormo couldn’t have said! So, he simply allowed his gaze to travel off, towards the horizon. _“And you?”_ Tyelco asked, “ _What did you do? How did you…”_

“Old magic.” The Raven King replied, allowing his gaze to turn out ahead again. For a moment he paused, before briefly glancing back and adding, “Steel is stubborn. It is the iron in it. It does not particularly like magic, but it is stubborn --in it’s loyalties especially.” 

And if Tyelcormo did not know what to make of the man’s previous words, these he could do even less with. But...they were answers. And honest ones, he felt, as well.

_“Why do you tell me this?”_ He found he could not help but ask, _“Why are you giving me such answers now?”_

“Because,” Uskglass replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “Now you are asking the right questions.”

~*~

He couldn’t have told you how long they had been traveling. Some distant part of him, far removed and struggling to hold to the facts of his current situation felt as though hardly any time had passed at all, that if he were to suddenly somehow return to that clearing where he’d slept beside his wife, he would find her there still, resting as peacefully as ever. The worried father however, the man who wished for nothing more than to find his son and the creatures that had snatched him right from his arms….for him, time seemed to limp forward, staggering towards the future. 

It was the way time traveled in a dream - and more and more it felt all too like a dream -- a _nightmare._ It was the only thing that made sense when all else did not -- when his son had been stolen away by the creatures from the stories he’d been sent to bed with, when one could leap through a reflection cast upon a lake and find themselves in a labyrinth of twisting stone corridors, when the light itself seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, and did not change. It was a grasping hope and desperate, that at any moment he could simply wake up and all would be well, so he could not believe that either.

He simply pushed on.

At some point Tyelcormo disappeared, taking Huan with him as he strode up to speak with Uskglass. He would gain more by attempting to speak to any of the stone walls surrounding them, Curvo could not help but think, and yet...and yet Tyelcormo remained up there, ahead of them all for some time. Curufinwë traced his brother’s path back to his side as he returned, and the expression upon his brother’s face was...odd.

“What is it?” Curvo asked him, “Have you gotten anything out of him? What did he say?”

Tyelco opened his mouth, only to shut it, blinking, his gaze turning inward. He was silent for some time, seeming to consider his answer. “I….am not sure.” He said at last, before shaking his head, “Nothing. Nothing of interest.”

Curvo eyed his brother, narrowing his gaze. The silence that stretched on between them bore a crushing weight, but Tyelcormo said no more.

A frustrated sigh escaping him, Curvo simply shook his head and went back to staring at the horizon line.

“Curvo--”

“You say he said nothing. Fine.”

“No, you do not understand. I don’t--”

Curufinwë breathed out a sharp huff. “No. I _don’t_ understand, Tyelcormo. You are right.”

He said no more afterward, despite how his brother continued to prod at him -- more gentle appeals growing sharper and angrier, until at last, grown frustrated himself, Tyelcormo simply threw his hands up and fell silent. 

Eventually, finally -- or perhaps sooner than he thought -- they came at last to a stop. It was a tall, arching gateway, Curufinwë could see as he neared, the shadows that fell over it just as dark as any others that lurked, yet shifting, sinuous and twining, broken through only briefly by flickers of deep orange and red as though it were burning. Curufinwë could only narrow his eyes at it in suspicion

It did not help matters the way Uskglass was looking at them all as he stood there, waiting for them, arms crossed over his chest and head canted just to the side. Eyes narrowed just slightly. Thinking. The a was considering something.

And worse still, Curufinwë thought, it was _his_ eyes that the man’s gaze seemed to linger on the longest.

Atar way saying something, once more in Valarin, the words and alien sounds of the tongue lending even more power to the warning tone in his voice. Making the hair on the back of Curvo’s neck stand on end. 

Uskglass simply ignored the words however. Striding forward, lickig at his thumb and drawing a sign across Curvo’s lips, then his ears. Even as he stumbled back, and too quickly for him to react in time. And all with the same manner that Curvo himself or Finyanís might have wiped a smudge from Tyelpë’s face.

Atar and Tyelco cried out, both of them turning on Uskglass, looking read to reach for their knives again. 

“Eru, Ai! What are you--” Curufinwë cut himself off, blinking then staring at the man before him.

Those were not his words, not _Quenya_ at all. And he could understand them…

“I have lived long enough, having to have my words translated for others. It is…inconvenient at best.” Uskglass replied, shrugging.

“Curvo? What are you saying?”

Tyelco, now unable to understand _him._ Atar meanwhile was barking something else in Valarin at Uskglass, who merely sighed. 

__

__

“Tell them to calm themselves. I will have to do the same for them. We enter an entire world where their language is unknown…”

“You cannot just--” Curvo began, but Uskglass only looked back. Waiting, and growing impatient. As if the idea of suddenly altering another man’s speech --- language! -- and the accompanying invasion of his space meant nothing at all to him.

“Would you rather be left able to grasp only half of what you hear and see?” The man asked him. He sounded fully prepared to remove whatever trick it was he’d placed over Curvo as he said it, as well.

“My father and brother have served well enough thus far in allowing me to understand.” Curufinwë replied, cooly. Perhaps it was stubborn - his entire family were well known for it -- but he _knew,_ at least he could trust them far more than the man before him. 

“And once I must translate for them, so that _they_ may understand?”

A pause. A beat. Curufinwë hesitated, and he knew in that moment he’d already lost, if only in _showing_ that hesitation. That uncertainty. Better to trust his own ears than whatever came filtered through this man -- and Uskglass knew it. 

He glowered at him. Silently cursed the man. But finally, briskly, Curufinwë turned to his father and his brother. It took him a moment. He had to think to speak in Quenya. “Allow him to act. It is...a means of translation.” he said to them, reluctance clear in his voice, “It could prove... _useful_ …” 

~*~

Flamelight, warm and glowing flickered golden over the walls -- He could see as he twisted around the mirror’s frame and strode out into the room. In the snapping crackle from the hearth there was a greeting as he stepped into his study, ‘ _Hail, King, and well met!’_ The scent of the herbs strewn over the rushes and crushed beneath his feet drifted up around him, and he breathed it in, absently brushing off the dirt from the road.

“My Lord?”

William. John glanced up, towards the man now stood there beside his desk, bathed in the grey winter’s sunlight filtering through the windows. 

William sighed, shaking his head and running back a hand through the length of the chestnut-colored hair that fell about his face. “You are returned sooner than we expected. Ah. Well. I-”

John held up a hand to silence the man. To signal for him to wait. Even as he did so, however, William’s gaze was already turning upward, back straightening, eyes turning alert. The expressions that flickered across the Earl of Lanchester’s face read clearly enough as to _why._ Interestingly, it wasn’t untill the grunts of the Hound pushing it’s way through and the scrabbling of it’s feet against the floor reached John’s ears that William’s eyes _really_ went wide. There was a moment’s beat, and then:

“You’ve brought guests.” 

The Raven King simply inclined his head in accent. Already he was striding his way across the room , pushing aside the parchment laid across his desk to make room for the silver basin he was about to put in their place. “Prince Curufinwë Fëanáro and his sons.” He said. “Have the servants see that they are made comfortable, William.”


End file.
